-J^, 

est   ■ 

"  1    f^ 

a,^  '^ 

^  t_ 

^v 

r^r\  t 

S        S        1 

D^J 

'omar"'^^ 


I 


rrt 


•-;a\.i-  i-iuii/^Ji 


^ .    ■ 

■^?WAmn  -^^       '^OriiTVi  40^ 


'^c^AavHan-^ 


LECTURES   ON   LITERATURE 


COLUMBIA 

UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

SALES  AGENTS 

NEW   YORK : 

LEMCKE  &  BUECHNER 

30-32  West  27tii  Street 

LONDON : 

HENRY  FROWDE 

Amen  Cornek,  E.G. 


COLUMBIA    UNIVERSITY  LECTURES 


LECTURES  m  LITERATURE 


2  3<^9(^ 


Neto  gork 

THE    COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY   PRESS 

1911 


All  rights  reserved 


COPTEIGHT,    1911, 

By  the   COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY   PEE88. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  April,  igii. 


NorbJooD  3|re3S 

J.  S.  Gushing  Co.  —  Herwick  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


NOTE 

These  lectures  by  members  of  the  Faculty  of  Columbia 
University  were  delivered,  with  one  exception,  during  the 
academic  year  1909-1910. 


■  ^    I 
CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION 

LECTtTEE  PAGE 

I.     Approaches  to  Literature         .         .....         I 

By  Brander  Matthews,  Professor  of  Dramatic  Liter"+ure. 

ORIENTAL   LITERATURES 

II.     Semitic  Literatures    ........       21 

By  Richard  J.  H.  Gottheil,  Professor  of  Rabbinical  I^iterature 
and  the  Semitic  Languages. 

III.  The  Literature  of  India  and  Persia       ....       43 

By  A.  V.  W.  Jackson,  Professor  of  Indo-Iranian  Languages. 

IV.  Chinese  Literature     ........       67 

By  Friedrich  Hirth,  Professor  of  Chinese. 

CLASSICAL   LITERATURES 

V.     Greek  Literature        ........       91 

By  Edward  Delavan  Perry,  Jay  Professor  of  Greek. 

VI.     Latin  Literature  ........     115 

By  Nelson  Glenn  McCrea,  Professor  of  Latin. 

LITERARY    EPOCHS 

Vn.     The  Middle  Ages 133 

By  William  Witherle  Lawrence,  Associate  Professor  of  English. 

VIII.     The  Renaissance  ........     15.5 

By  Jefferson  B.  Fletcher,  Professor  of  Comparative  Literature. 

IX.     The  Classical  Rule 177 

By  John  Erskine,  Associate  Professor  of  English. 

X.     The  Romantic  Emancipation      ......     203 

By  Curtis  Hidden  Page,  sometime  Adjunct  Professor  of  the 
Romance  Languages  and  Literatures. 

MODERN   LITERATURES 

XL     Italian  Literature  in  the  Eighteenth  Century   .         .     219 
By  Carlo  L.  Speranza,  Professor  of  Italian, 
vii 


VIU 


CONTENTS 


LErrrRE  pa(.r 

XII.     Spanish  Literature  ........     233 

By  Henry  Alfred  Todd,  Professor  of  Romance  Philology. 

XIII.  English  Literature  ........     251 

By  Ashley  H.  Thorndike,  Professor  of  English. 

XIV.  French  Literature  ........     273 

By  Adolphe  Cohn,   Professor  of  the  Romance  Languages 
and  Literatures. 

XV.     German  Literature  .......     291 

By  Calvin   Thomas,  Gebhard   Professor  of  the  Germanic 
Lxnguages  and  Literatures. 

XVI.     Russian  Literature 311 

By  J.  A.  Joffe,  Lecturer  on  Slavonic  Literature. 

XVII.     The  Cosmopolitan  Outlook     ......     333 

By  William  P.  Trent,  Professor  of  English  Literature. 

CONCLUSION 

XVIII.     Literary  Criticism  ...,..,.     355 

By  J.  E.  Spiugarn,  Professor  of  Comparative  Literature. 

INDEX 375 


APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE 

2-  ?)<hS(^ 
By  Brander  Matthews,  Professor  of  Dramatic 
Literature 

Two  winters  ago  Columbia  University  invited  its  teaching 
staff,  its  students,  and  its  friends  to  a  series  of  lectures  which 
set  forth  the  essential  quality  and  the  existing  condition  of 
each  of  the  several  sciences,  and  to-day  Columbia  University 
begins  another  series  of  lectures  devoted  to  a  single  one  of 
the  arts  —  the  art  of  Literature.  In  the  opening  decade  of 
this  twentieth  century,  when  the  triumphs  of  Science  are 
exultant  on  all  sides  of  us,  there  would  be  a  lack  of  propriety 
in  failing  to  acknowledge  its  power  and  its  authority;  and  a 
grosser  failure  would  follow  any  attempt  to  set  up  Art  as  a 
rival  over  against  Science.  Art  and  Science  have  each  of 
them  their  own  field;  they  have  each  of  them  their  own  work 
to  do;  and  they  are  not  competitors  but  colleagues  in  the 
service  of  humanity,  responding  to  different  needs.  Man 
cannot  live  by  Science  alone,  since  Science  does  not  feed 
the  soul;  and  it  is  Art  which  nourishes  the  heart  of  man. 
Science  does  what  it  can ;  and  Art  does  what  it  must.  Science 
takes  no  thought  of  the  individual;  and  individuality  is  the 
essence  of  Art.  Science  seeks  to  be  impersonal,  and  it  is 
ever  struggling  to  cast  out  what  it  calls  the  personal  equa- 
tion. Art  cherishes  individuality  and  is  what  it  is  because 
of  the  differences  which  distinguish  one  man  from  another; 
and  therefore  the  loftiest  achievements  of  Art  are  the  result 
of  the  personal  equation  raised  to  its  highest  power. 

Of  all  the  liberal  arts  Literature  is  the  oldest,  as  it  is  the 
most  immediate  in  its  utility  and  the  broadest  in  its  appeal. 
B  1 


2  APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE 

Better  than  any  of  its  sisters  is  it  fitted  to  fulfil  the  duty  of 
making  man  familiar  with  his  fellows  and  of  explaining  him 
to  himself.  It  may  be  called  the  most  significant  of  the  arts, 
because  every  one  of  us,  before  we  can  adjust  ourselves  to 
the  social  order  in  which  we  have  to  live,  must  understand 
the  prejudices  and  desires  of  others,  and  also  the  opinions 
these  others  hold  about  the  world  wherein  we  dwell.  Litera- 
ture alone  can  supply  this  understanding.  The  other  arts 
bring  beauty  into  life  and  help  to  make  it  worth  living;  but 
since  mankind  came  down  from  the  family  tree  of  its  arboreal 
ancestors,  it  is  Literature  which  has  made  life  possible.  It 
is  the  swiftest  and  the  surest  aid  to  a  wide  understanding  of 
others  and  to  a  deep  understanding  of  ourselves.  It  gives 
us  not  only  knowledge  but  wisdom;  and  thereby  it  helps  to 
free  us  from  vain  imaginings  as  to  our  own  importance. 
Ignorance  is  always  conceited,  since  it  never  knows  that  it 
knows  nothing;  and  even  knowledge  may  be  puffed  up  on 
occasion,  since  it  knows  that  it  knows  many  things;  but 
wisdom  is  devoid  of  illusion,  since  it  knows  how  little  it  ever 
can  know. 

The  poet  Blake  declared  that  we  never  know  enough  un- 
less we  know  more  than  enough;  and  who  of  us  is  ever  likely 
to  attain  to  that  altitude  of  comprehension?  After  all,  even 
the  most  protracted  investigation  of  fact  and  the  most  inces- 
sant meditation  on  truth  must  be  circumscribed  by  the  brief 
radius  of  human  knowledge.  What  are  threescore  years  and 
ten?  What  is  a  century  even?  And  as  time  pulses  by,  ever 
quickening  its  pace,  we  are  often  tempted  to  echo  Lowell's 
envious  ejaculation,  "What  a  lucky  dog  Methuselah  was! 
Nothing  to  know,  and  nine  hundred  years  to  learn  it  in!" 

If  Literature  is  the  most  venerable  of  the  arts,  and  if  it 
is  the  most  significant,  it  should  be  approached  with  the  out- 
ward signs  of  reverence.  When  we  stand  up  here  to  discuss 
it,  to  declare  its  importance  and  to  consider  its  purpose,  it 
is  fit  that  we  robe  ourselves  in  stately  academic  costume 


APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE  3 

and  don  gown  and  hood,  that  the  noble  theme  may  be  dealt 
with  in  all  outward  respect.  Buffon  was  so  possessed  by 
the  dignity  of  letters  that  he  put  on  his  richest  garb,  with 
lace  ruffles  and  gem-studded  sword,  before  he  sat  him  down 
at  his  desk  to  labor  at  his  monumental  work;  and  Machiavelli 
also  arrayed  himself  "in  royal,  courtly  garments,"  and  thus 
worthily  attired  he  made  his  ''entrance  into  the  ancient 
courts  of  the  men  of  old." 

But  this  lordly  approach  is  not  imperative,  for  Literature, 
lofty  as  it  may  be  at  times,  is  not  remote  a^id  austere.  At 
its  best  it  is  friendly  and  intimate.  It  is  not  for  holidays 
only  and  occasions  of  state;  it  is  for  everyday  use.  It  is 
not  for  the  wise  and  the  learned  only,  but  for  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men.  It  provides  the  simple  ballad  and  the 
casual  folk-tale  that  live  by  word  of  mouth,  generation  after 
generation,  on  the  lonely  hillside;  and  it  proffers  also  the 
soul-searching  tragedy  which  grips  the  masses  in  the  densely 
crowded  city.  It  has  its  message  for  every  one,  old  and 
young,  rich  and  poor,  educated  and  ignorant;  and  it  is  su- 
preme only  as  it  succeeds  in  widening  its  invitation  to  include 
us  all.  At  one  time  it  brings  words  of  cheer  to  the  weak 
and  the  downhearted;  and  at  another  it  stirs  the  strong 
like  the  blare  of  the  bugle.  It  has  as  many  aspects  as  the 
public  has  many  minds.  It  is  sometimes  to  be  recovered 
only  by  diligent  scholarship  out  of  the  dust  of  the  ages; 
and  it  is  sometimes  to  be  discovered  amid  the  fleeting  words 
lavishly  poured  out  in  the  books  of  the  hour,  in  the  maga- 
zines, and  even  in  the  daily  journals.  It  may  be  born  of  a 
chance  occasion  and  yet  be  worthy  to  survive  through  the 
long  ages  —  the  Gettysburg  address,  for  example,  and  the 
"Recessional." 

Literature  is  now  what  it  was  in  the  past,  and  it  will  be 
in  the  future  what  it  is  now,  infinitely  various  and  unend- 
ingly interesting.     We  can  venture  to  project  the  curve  of 


4  APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE 

its  advance  in  the  years  to  come  only  after  we  have  grasped 
what  it  is  to-day;  and  we  can  perceive  clearly  its  full  mean- 
ing in  our  own  time  only  after  we  have  acquainted  ourselves 
with  its  manifold  manifestations  in  the  centuries  that  are 
gone.  True  it  is  that  Literature  is  the  result  of  individual 
effort  and  that  its  sublimest  achievements  are  due  to  single 
genius;  and  yet  it  is  racial  also,  and  it  is  always  stamped 
with  the  seal  of  nationality,  which  is  the  sum  total  of  myriads 
of  individuals.  Literature  is  ever  marked  with  the  image 
and  superscription  of  the  people  whose  ideas  it  expressed 
and  whose  emotions  it  voiced.  Races  struggle  upwards  and 
estabhsh  themselves  for  a  little  while  and  then  sink  back 
helpless;  mighty  empires  rise  and  fall,  one  after  another, 
each  believing  itself  to  be  destined  to  endure;  and  it  is  mainly 
by  the  Literature  they  may  chance  to  leave  behind  them 
that  they  are  rescued  from  oblivion.  What  do  we  really 
know  about  Assyria  and  about  Babylon?  Where  are  the 
cities  of  old  time?  Why  is  it  that  we  can  see  Sparta  only 
vaguely,  while  Athens  towers  aloft  in  outline  we  all  recognize? 
The  massive  monuments  of  Egypt  persist  through  thousands 
of  years,  but  the  souls  of  the  dwellers  in  the  valley  of  the 
Nile  are  not  known  to  us  as  we  know  the  souls  of  the  Hebrews, 
whom  they  took  captive,  and  whose  sacred  books  reveal  to 
us  their  uplifting  aspirations  and  their  unattained  ideals. 
We  can  extract  not  a  httle  Ught  from  the  laws  of  Rome,  but 
not  so  much  as  we  can  derive  from  the  lighter  writings  of 
the  Latins;  and  the  code  which  is  known  as  the  novels  of  Jus- 
tinian does  not  afford  us  as  much  illumination  as  the  realistic 
fiction  of  Petronius.  The  many  ruins  of  Rome  are  restored 
for  us  and  peopled  again  with  Hving  men  and  women,  only 
when  we  read  the  speeches  of  Cicero,  the  lyrics  of  Horace, 
and  the  letters  of  Pliny. 

It  is  not  in  the  barren  annals  of  a  nation  that  we  can  most 
readily  discover  the  soul  of  a  race.  Rather  is  it  in  those 
lesser  works  of  the  several  arts  in  which  the  men  of  old 


APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE  5 

revealed  themselves  unconsciously  and  yet  amply.  The 
records  of  the  historians  and  the  codes  of  the  lawgivers  are 
assuredly  not  to  be  neglected,  but  they  are  not  more  signifi- 
cant than  the  unpretending  efforts  of  forgotten  artists,  the 
painters  of  the  Greek  vases,  for  instance,  and  the  molders  of 
the  Tanagra  figurines.  The  idyls  of  Theocritus  are  not  less 
illuminating  than  the  orations  of  Demosthenes  or  the  trage- 
dies of  ^schylus. 

^  Literature  is  precious  for  its  own  sake,  but  it  has  ever  an 
added  value  from  the  light  it  cannot  help  casting  on  the 
manners  and  customs  which  disclose  the  indurated  charac- 
teristics of  a  people.  The  unmistakable  flavor  of  the  Middle 
Ages  lurks  in  the  etherialized  lyrics  of  the  German  minne- 
singers no  less  than  in  the  more  mimdane  fabUaux  of  the 
French  satirists.  We  cannot  open  a  book,  even  if  it  shelters 
only  evanescent  fiction,  aiming  solely  to  amuse  an  idle  hour, 
without  opening  also  a  window  on  a  civilization  unlike  any 
other;  and  he  would  be  a  traveler  of  marvelous  ability  who 
could  make  us  as  intimately  acquainted  with  the  simple 
rustics  of  the  Black  Forest,  with  the  primitive  peasants  of 
Sicily,  or  with  the  deserted  spinsters  of  New  England,  as  we 
find  ourselves  after  we  have  read  a  volume  or  two  by  Auer- 
bach,  by  Verga,  or  by  Miss  Wilkins.  Some  of  us  there  are 
who  love  Literature  all  the  more  because  it  can  catch  for 
us  this  local  color,  fixed  once  for  all,  and  because  it  can  pre- 
serve for  us  this  flavor  of  the  soil,  this  intimate  essence  of  a 
special  place  and  of  a  special  period. 

"The  real  fiterature  of  an  epoch,"  Renan  declared,  "is 
that  which  paints  and  expresses  it,"  and  such  is  the  real  Lit- 
erature of  a  race  also.  Perhaps  the  epoch  is  most  completely 
painted  and  expressed  when  the  author  is  interpreting  the 
life  that  is  seething  about  him,  dealing  directly  with  what  he 
knows  best,  as  Plautus  has  preserved  for  us  the  very  aroma 
of  the  teeming  tenements  of  the  Latin  metropoUs,  as  Moliere 
has  limned  for  us  the  "best  society"  of  France  under  Louis 


6  APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE 

XIV,  and  as  Mark  Twain  has  set  before  us  the  simple  ways 
of  the  Mississippi  river-folk.  But,  after  all,  this  does  not 
matter  much;  and  even  if  a  writer  is  handling  a  theme  re- 
mote from  his  own  experience,  he  is  still  painting  his  own 
epoch  and  expressing  his  own  race,  although  he  may  not  be 
aware  of  it.  Whatever  ineffectual  effort  he  may  make,  no 
man  can  step  off  his  shadow.  However  violently  he  seeks  to 
escape,  he  is  held  fast  by  his  heredity  and  his  environment. 
"Hamlet"  is  a  tale  of  Denmark,  "Romeo  and  Juhet"  is  a  tale 
of  Italy,  and  "Julius  Caesar"  is  a  tale  of  ancient  Rome;  but 
Shakspere  himself  was  an  Elizabethan  EngUshman,  and 
these  tragic  masterpieces  of  his  were  possible  only  in  the 
sceptered  isle  set  in  the  silver  sea  in  the  spacious  days  of  the 
Virgin  Queen.  Racine  borrowed  his  stories  from  Euripides, 
and  he  persuaded  himself  that  he  had  been  able  to  make 
Greek  drama  hve  again;  but  his  "PhMre"  and  his  "Andro- 
maque"  are  French  none  the  less,  and  they  are  stamped  with 
the  date  of  the  seventeenth  century.  So  absolutely  do  they 
belong  to  the  period  and  to  the  place  of  their  author  that 
Taine  insisted  that  these  tragedies  of  Racine  could  best  be 
performed  in  the  court  costumes  and  in  the  full-bottomed 
wigs  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV,  since  only  thus  could  they 
completely  justify  themselves. 

This  intimate  essence  of  nationahty  is  evident  not  only  in 
the  thoughts  that  sustain  the  work  of  the  artist  and  in  the 
emotions  by  which  he  moves  us,  it  may  be  discovered  also  in 
his  style,  in  his  use  of  words  to  phrase  his  thoughts  and  to 
voice  his  emotion,  in  the  pattern  of  his  composition,  and  in 
the  rhythm  of  his  sentences.  The  way  in  which  he  links 
paragraph  to  paragraph  may  lead  us  back  to  his  birthplace 
and  the  stock  from  which  he  sprang.  We  can  catch  the  ac- 
cent of  his  ancestors  in  the  rise  and  fall  of  his  periods,  and 
sometimes  it  seems  almost  as  though  his  many  forefathers 
were  making  use  of  him  as  their  amanuensis. 


APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE  7 

Consider  Shakspere  and  Bacon,  and  set  them  over  against 
each  other.  They  were  contemporary  Enghshmen,  aUke  and 
yet  unhke,  alert  and  intelHgent,  energetic  and  wise,  both  of 
them,  yet  with  a  different  wisdom,  masters  of  expression  each 
in  his  own  fashion,  and  possessed  of  the  interpreting  imagi- 
nation. When  our  attention  is  called  to  it,  as  Mr.  Havelock 
EHis  has  lately  done,  we  cannot  fail  to  find  that  Shakspere 
''with  his  gay  extravagance  and  redundancy,  his  essential 
ideahsm,  came  of  a  people  that  had  been  changed  in  char- 
acter from  the  surrounding  stock  by  a  Celtic  infolding,"  and 
that  Bacon  "with  his  instinctive  gravity  and  temperance, 
the  suppressed  ardor  of  his  aspiring  intellectual  passion,  his 
temperamental  naturalism,  was  rooted  deep  in  that  East 
AngUan  soil  which  he  had  never  so  much  as  visited." 

To  seek  to  seize  these  subtler  differences,  due  not  so  much 
to  nationality  as  to  provinciality,  if  the  word  may  be  thus 
applied,  is  not  to  inquire  too  curiously,  for  it  is  to  advance 
in  knowledge  and  to  draw  a  little  nearer  to  that  secret  of 
genius,  which  must  remain  ever  the  inexplicable  result  of  the 
race,  the  individual,  and  the  opportunity.  There  is  not  a 
little  significance  in  Mr.  Ellis's  suggestion  that  we  can  per- 
ceive in  the  pages  of  Hawthorne  "a  glamor"  of  which  "the 
latent  aptitude  had  been  handed  on  by  ancestors  who  dwelt 
on  the  borders  of  Wales,"  whereas  Renan  came  from  a  family 
of  commingled  Gascon  and  Breton  descent,  so  that  "in  the 
very  contour  and  melody  of  his  style  the  ancient  bards  of 
Brittany  have  joined  hands  with  the  tribe  of  Montaigne  and 
Brantome."  It  was  Comte  w^ho  declared  that  "humanity  is 
always  made  up  of  more  dead  than  living." 

There  is  significance  also  in  the  fact  that  the  most  of  the 
major  writers  of  Latin  Literature  were  not  Romans  by  birth 
and  that  not  a  few  of  them  were  Spaniards,  Seneca  for  one 
and  Martial  for  another.  Petronius  was  possibly  a  Parisian, 
and  the  mother  of  Boccaccio  was  probably  a  French  woman. 
It  is  to  be  noted  also  that  Rutebceuf ,  Villon,  Regnier,  Scarron, 


8  APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE 

Moliere,  Boileau,  La  Bruyere,  Regnard,  Voltaire,  Beaumar- 
chais,  Beranger,  and  Labiche  were  all  of  them  natives  of  Paris. 
Who  can  dispute  the  deduction  that  certain  of  the  dominant 
characteristics  of  French  literature  may  be  due  to  the  cir- 
cumstance that  so  many  of  its  leaders  were  bom  in  the  streets 
of  the  city  by  the  Seine  ?  May  not  this  be  one  of  the  causes 
of  that  constant  urbanity  which  is  the  distinguishing  note 
of  the  best  French  authors  ? 

That  accompUshed  scholar,  the  late  Gaston  Boissier,  did 
not  hesitate  to  assert  that  he  wrote  not  for  his  fellow-inves- 
tigators, but  for  the  general  reader.  This  is  what  all  French 
authors  have  done  when  they  have  preserved  the  true  Pari- 
sian tradition.  They  have  willingly  renounced  overt  indi- 
viduality and  they  have  shrunk  from  a  self-expression  which 
they  could  not  transmit  without  the  risk  of  shocking,  or  at 
least  of  annoying,  those  to  whom  they  were  talking,  pen  in 
hand.  They  accepted  the  wholesome  restraints  of  the  rules 
of  Art,  which,  as  M.  Faguet  has  maintained,  "are  all  of  them 
counsels  of  perfection,  allowing  every  exception  which  good 
taste  will  justify,  from  which  it  results  that  the  one  important 
rule  is  to  have  good  taste."  The  value  of  good  taste  in  Lit- 
erature will  be  strikingly  revealed  to  any  one  who  comes 
from  the  profitable  pleasure  of  reading  Boissier's  "End  of 
Paganism,"  with  its  rich  scholarship,  its  large  and  penetrating 
wisdom,  its  gentle  urbanity,  and  its  ripe  ease  of  style,  to  take 
up  Pater's  "Plato  and  Platonism,"  thin  and  brittle  in  its 
temper,  artificial  and  affected  in  its  manner,  and,  in  a  word, 
self-conscious  and  berouged.  Still  may  we  hail  France  in 
the  words  of  the  Scotchman  Buchanan :  — 

"At  tu,  beata  Gallia, 
Salve,  bonarum  blanda  nutrix  artium." 

There  is  ever  profit  in  this  effort  to  seize  the  potent  influ- 
ence of  heredity  and  environment,  even  upon  the  genius  who 
may  seem  at  first  glance  to  be  the  least  controlled  in  the 


APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE  9 

exuberance  of  his  personality.  We  have  grasped  a  true 
talisman  of  artistic  appreciation  when  we  can  compare  the 
practical  common  sense  and  the  austere  gravity  of  the  Roman 
with  the  inexhaustible  curiosity  and  the  open-minded  intel- 
ligence of  the  Greek,  and  when  we  contrast  the  restraining 
social  instinct  of  the  French  with  the  domineering  energy 
of  the  English,  But  however  interesting  may  be  this  en- 
deavor to  perceive  the  race  behind  the  individual,  and  to 
force  it  to  help  explain  him,  there  are  other  ways  of  seeking 
an  insight  into  Literature  not  less  instructive. 

We  can  confine  our  attention,  if  we  please,  to  a  chosen  few 
of  the  greatest  writers,  the  men  of  an  impregnable  suprem- 
acy. We  can  neglect  the  minor  writings  even  of  these 
masters  to  center  our  affections  on  their  acknowledged 
masterpieces.  We  may  turn  aside  from  the  authors  indi- 
vidually, however  mighty  they  may  be,  and  from  their  sev- 
eral works,  however  impressive,  to  consider  the  successive 
movements  which  one  after  the  other  have  changed  the 
stream  of  Literature,  turning  it  into  new  channels  and  sweep- 
ing along  almost  every  man  of  letters,  powerless  to  with- 
stand the  current.  We  may  perhaps  prefer  to  abandon  the 
biographical  aspects  of  Literature  to  investigate  its  bio- 
logical aspects,  and  to  study  out  the  slow  differentiation  of 
the  several  Uterary  species,  history  from  the  oration,  for 
example,  and  the  drama  from  the  lyric.  Or,  finally,  we  may 
find  interest  in  tracing  the  growth  of  these  critical  theories 
about  literary  art  which  have  helped  and  which  have  hin- 
dered the  free  expansion  of  the  author's  genius  at  one  time 
or  at  another.  There  are  many  different  ways  of  penetrat- 
ing within  the  open  portals  of  Literature.  All  of  them  are 
inviting;  all  of  them  will  lead  a  student  to  a  garden  of  de- 
light; and  which  one  of  them  a  man  may  choose  will  depend 
on  his  answer  to  the  question  whether  he  is  more  interested 
in  persons,  or  in  things,  or  in  ideas. 

There  is  unfading  joy  in  a  lasting  friendship  with  a  great  I 


10  APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE 

writer,  whether  it  is  Aristotle,  "the  master  of  all  that  know," 
or  Sophocles,  who  "  saw  life  steadily  and  saw  it  whole  " ;  Dante, 
who  "wandered  through  the  realms  of  gloom,"  or  Milton, 
the  "God-given  organ-voice  of  England."  Such  a  friendship 
brings  us  close  to  a  full  mind  and  to  a  noble  soul.  And  such  a 
friendship  can  be  had  only  in  return  for  loyal  service,  for  a 
«  strenuous  resolve  to  spare  nothing  needed  for  full  apprecia- 
tion of  the  master's  genius.  A  friendly  familiarity  with  an 
author  of  cosmopolitan  fame  can  be  achieved  only  by  wide 
wanderings,  to  and  fro,  here  and  there,  in  the  long  centuries 
in  search  of  the  predecessors  whom  he  followed,  the  con- 
temporaries to  whom  he  addressed  his  message,  and  the  suc- 
cessors who  followed  the  path  he  had  been  the  first  to  tread. 
Wisely  selected,  by  an  honest  exercise  of  our  own  taste, 
a  single  author  may  serve  as  a  center  of  interest  for  the  lov- 
ing study  of  a  lifetime.  Lowell  found  that  his  profound 
admiration  for  Dante  pleasantly  persuaded  him  to  studies 
and  explorations  of  which  he  httle  dreamed  when  he  began. 
A  desire  to  understand  Moliere  will  lead  an  admirer  of  that 
foremost  of  comic  dramatists  to  investigate  the  history  of 
comedy  in  Greece  and  Rome,  in  Spain  and  Italy,  and  to  trace 
out  the  enduring  influence  of  the  great  French  playwright  on 
the  later  comedy  of  France,  England,  and  Germany;  it  -mil 
also  tempt  him  into  unexpected  by-paths,  whereby  he  may 
acquire  information  about  topics  seemingly  as  remote  as  the 
Jesuit  methods  of  education,  as  Gassendi's  revival  of  the 
atomic  theories  of  Lucretius,  and  as  the  practice  of  medicine 
in  the  seventeenth  century. 

Closely  akin  to  this  devotion  to  one  of  the  mighty  masters 
of  Literature  is  the  concentration  of  our  interest  on  a  single 
literary  masterpiece.  We  may  prefer  to  fill  our  ears  with 
"the  surge  and  thunder  of  the  Odyssey"  or  to  recall  the 
interlinked  tales  "of  the  golden  prime  of  good  Haroun  al 
Raschid."  We  may  find  ample  satisfaction  in  following  the 
footsteps  of  one  or  another  of  the  largely  conceived  cos- 


APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE  11 

mopolitan  characters,  figures  which  have  won  favor  far  be- 
yond the  borders  of  their  birthplace.  Some  of  these  heroic 
strugglers  Uve  only  in  the  language  which  they  hsped  at 
first,  while  others  have  gone  forth  to  wander  from  one  land, 
one  literature,  one  art,  that  they  may  tarry  awhile  in  other 
lands,  other  literatures,  and  other  arts. 

After  all  his  travels  Ulysses  abides  with  his  own  people; 
the  gaunt  profile  of  Don  Quixote  still  projects  itseK  against 
the  sharp  hills  of  Spain,  and  Falstaff  is  at  home  only  in  the 
little  island  where  he  blustered  boldly  and  breezily.  But 
Faust  is  a  seedling  of  one  soil  transplanted  into  another, 
where  he  struck  down  deeper  roots,  only  to  tower  aloft  again 
in  the  land  of  his  origin.  And  Don  Juan,  the  lyrical  hero  of 
a  mystical  Spanish  legend,  touched  at  Italy,  before  he  was 
received  in  France,  where  he  was  transformed  into  the  im- 
placable portrait  of  "a  great  lord  who  is  a  wicked  man." 
And  from  the  French  drama  "Don  Juan"  strayed  into  Enghsh 
poetry  and  into  German  music;  so  Faust,  born  obscurely  in 
Germany,  ventured  out  from  English  poetry  into  German 
drama  and  into  French  music.  It  is  well  for  the  arts  that  there 
is  and  always  has  been  free  trade  in  their  raw  materials,  and 
that  no  customhouse  can  take  toll  on  the  ideas  which  one 
nation  sends  to  another  to  be  worked  up  into  finished  prod- 
ucts. From  race  to  race,  from  century  to  century,  from  art 
to  art,  there  is  unceasing  interchange  of  intellectual  com- 
modities; and  no  inspired  statistician  can  strike  the  balance 
of  this  international  trade  whereby  men  are  enabled  to 
nourish  their  souls. 

Nor  are  these  brave  figures  the  sole  travelers  whose  wan- 
derings we  may  trace  from  one  literature  to  another,  subdu- 
ing their  native  accents  to  new  tongues.  Even  humbler 
characters  may  bear  a  charmed  life;  the  intriguing  slave  of 
Greek  comedy  was  taken  over  by  the  Latins,  to  revive  after  a 
slumber  of  more  than  a  thousand  years  in  the  Italian  comedy- 
of-masks  and  in  the  Spanish   comedy  of    cloak-and-sword. 


12  APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE 

from  which  he  stepped  forth  gaily  to  disguise  himself  as  the 
Mascarille  and  the  Scapin  of  Moliere,  and  as  the  Figaro  of 
Beaumarchais,  of  Mozart,  and  of  Rossini. 

Although  many  lovers  of  letters  may  be  tempted  to  devote 
themselves  mainly  to  the  masters  and  to  the  masterpieces  of 
Literature  and  to  the  perennial  types  which  Literature  has 
seen  fit  to  preserve  through  the  ages,  there  are  other  students 
who  will  find  their  profit  in  fixing  their  attention  rather  on 
the  several  movements  which  have  modified  Uterary  endeavor. 
Even  to-day  one  cannot  help  perceiving  the  persistence  of  the 
irrepressible  conflict  between  the  ideals  of  the  Greeks,  who 
sought  for  beauty  always,  and  the  ideals  of  the  Jews,  who  set 
aloft  duty.  Hellenism  swept  swiftly  from  Athens  to  Rome, 
and  then  to  all  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  until  it  spent 
its  force  and  finally  found  itself  desiccated  into  Alexandrian- 
ism.  Then,  in  its  turn,  the  Hebraic  spirit,  softened  by  Chris- 
tianity, spread  abroad  from  distant  and  despised  Palestine 
until  it  attained  to  the  uttermost  boundaries  of  the  wide-flung 
Roman  Empire.  The  influence  of  these  contending  ideals  is 
still  evident  in  this  twentieth  century  of  ours,  especially  in 
the  obvious  cleavage  between  the  artistic  aspirations  of  the 
races  of  Romance  origia  and  those  of  the  peoples  of  Teutonic 
stock. 

Certain  of  the  less  admirable  consequences  of  a  narrow 
acceptance  of  the  Hebraic  doctrines  revealed  themselves  in 
the  misguided  asceticism  of  the  Middle  Ages,  thereby  making 
easier  the  early  triumphs  of  the  Renaissance,  which  was  in 
its  essence  an  effort  to  recapture  the  joyous  Uberty  of  the 
Greeks.  The  new  learning  and  the  new  discovery  of  the 
wisdom  of  the  ancients  was  indeed  a  new  birt,h  for  the  arts, 
and  for  Literature  not  the  least.  Man  came  into  his  own 
once  again,  and  he  was  in  haste  to  express  himself.  He  drew 
a  long  breath  and  felt  at  last  free  to  live.  As  was  inevitable, 
he  pushed  back  the  Hmits  of  liberty  until  he  sometimes  at- 


APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE  13 

tained  an  unworthy  and  unwholesome  license.  His  new 
knowledge  made  him  arrogant  and  intolerant;  and  he  was 
ready  to  reject  all  restraint.  Yet  in  time  he  was  able  to 
recover  not  a  little  of  the  harmony  and  of  the  proportion 
which  had  characterized  the  great  Greeks,  even  if  he  never 
quite  attained  to  their  simplicity  and  to  their  sympathy. 

Then  the  reaction  came  at  last,  and  just  as  Hellenism  had 
shriveled  up  into  Alexandrianism,  so  the  Renaissance  in  its 
turn  dried  up  into  the  empty  and  formal  Classicism  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  with  its  code  of  rules  for  every  art.  Clas- 
sicism lost  its  grasp  on  the  realities  of  life,  and  it  cheated  itself 
with  words.  It  kept  the  letter  of  the  law  and  refused  to  con- 
form to  its  spirit.  It  sterilized  the  vocabulary  of  verse.  It 
left  the  poet  with  no  fit  instrument  for  the  wireless  communi- 
cation of  emotion.  In  England  it  gave  us  the  poetry  of  Alex- 
ander Pope  and  the  criticism  of  Samuel  Johnson;  and  in 
France  it  codified  the  regulations  which  were  responsible  for  a 
long  succession  of  hfeless  tragedies,  and  by  its  emphasis  upon 
legislation  to  curb  Literature  it  brought  about  the  reaction  of 
the  Romanticists,  who  succeeded  only  in  the  negative  work 
of  destruction  and  who  failed  lamentably  to  establish  their 
more  positive  contentions. 

Romanticism  had  its  rise  contemporary  with  the  American 
Revolution  and  with  the  French;  and  in  all  its  manifestos 
there  rings  the  tocsin  of  revolt.  It  promulgates  its  declaration 
of  the  rights  of  man  in  the  domain  of  Art;  and  it  tends  to  a 
stark  individualism  leading  straight  to  the  anarchy  which 
refuses  to  acknowledge  any  check  upon  the  caprice  of  the 
moment.  It  exalts  the  illegal,  the  illegitimate,  and  the 
ilhcit.  It  glorifies  the  outlaw  and  the  outcast;  and  it  relishes 
the  abnormal  rather  than  the  normal,  the  morbid  rather  than 
the  healthy.  The  violence  and  extravagance  of  the  roman- 
ticism of  Victor  Hugo,  for  example,  made  inevitable  the  real- 
ism of  Turgenieff  and  Howells.  The  principle  of  Art  for  Art's 
sake,  which  the  French  Romanticists  took  for  a  battle-cry 


14  APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE 

and  which  is  stimulating  if  it  is  properly  understood,  is  per- 
nicious when  it  is  misread  to  mean  that  the  artist  has  no  moral 
responsibihty.  Life  is  influenced  by  Literature  as  much  as 
'  Literature  is  influenced  by  Ufe.  Many  a  suicide  in  Germany 
was  the  result  of  Werther's  self-pitying  sorrows;  and  many 
a  young  man  in  France  took  pattern  by  Balzac's  sorry  heroes. 

As  instructive  as  any  study  of  these  successive  hterary 
movements  is  an  inquiry  into  the  several  hterary  species, 
with  due  consideration  of  their  evolution,  their  permanence, 
and  their  occasional  commingling  one  with  another.  There 
is  a  special  pleasure  in  tracing  the  development  of  oratory, 
for  example,  down  from  the  days  of  the  Greeks  to  our  own 
time,  deducing  its  essential  and  eternal  principles,  and  weigh- 
ing the  influence  of  Demosthenes  on  Cicero,  and  of  both  on 
Bossuet  and  on  Daniel  Webster.  There  is  an  equal  profit  in 
observing  how  history  has  been  able  to  separate  itself  from 
oratory  on  the  one  hand  and  from  the  epic  on  the  other.  A 
most  interesting  illustration  of  the  progress  from  the  hetero- 
geneous to  the  homogeneous  is  to  be  found  in  the  evolution  of 
Athenian  tragedy,  which  included  at  first  much  that  was  not 
strictly  dramatic.  It  developed  slowly  out  of  the  lyric;  and 
in  the  beginning  it  contained  choral  dances,  epic  narratives,  and 
descriptive  passages.  Amid  these  confused  elements  it  is  not 
always  easy  to  seize  the  essential  action  of  the  drama.  But  as 
Greek  tragedy  grew,  it  came  slowly  to  a  consciousness  of 
itself,  and  it  eliminated  one  by  one  these  non-dramatic  acces- 
sories, until  at  last  we  find  a  story  shown  in  action  and  repre- 
sented by  a  group  of  characters  immeshed  in  an  inexorable 
struggle.  A  parallel  development  took  place  a  little  later  in 
the  Greek  comic  drama,  whereby  the  lyrical-burlesque  of 
Aristophanes  became  the  more  prosaic  comedy  of  Menander; 
the  earlier  conglomerate  of  incongruous  elements  discarded 
one  by  one  its  soaring  lyric,  its  personal  lampooning,  and  its 
license  of  political  satire,  while  at  the  same  time  it  steadily 


APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE  15 

strengthened  the  supporting  plot,  with  the  appropriate  inter- 
relation of  character  and  situation. 

No  Uterary  species  has  had  a  more  unexpected  and  a  more 
unprecedented  prosperity  than  the  novel  in  prose,  which  in 
the  nineteenth  century  became  the  most  popular  of  forms, 
essayed  by  many  a  writer  who  possessed  only  a  small  share 
of  the  native  gift  of  story-telling.  The  novel  is  almost  the 
only  one  of  the  literary  species  that  the  Greeks  of  the  Golden 
Age  did  not  develop  and  carry  to  a  perfection  which  is  the 
despair  of  all  later  men  of  letters.  They  seem  to  have  cared 
little  for  prose  fiction;  and  when  they  had  a  story  to  tell  they 
set  it  forth  in  verse,  inspired  by  the  muse  of  epic  poetry. 
To-day  that  forsaken  maiden  can  find  work  fit  for  her  hands 
only  by  laying  aside  her  singing  robes  and  condescending  to 
bare  prose. 

Two  of  the  foremost  of  modem  masters  of  prose  fiction, 
Cervantes  and  Fielding,  have  claimed  that  their  stories  were, 
in  very  truth,  epics  in  prose.  On  the  other  hand,  George 
Meredith  seemed  to  consider  the  novel  to  be  derived  rather 
from  comedy;  and  there  is  no  question  that  the  expansion  of 
prose  fiction  was  aided,  also,  by  the  delicate  work  of  the  sev- 
enteenth-century character-wTiters  and  of  the  eighteenth-cen- 
tury essayists.  We  may,  if  we  choose,  declare  that  the  series 
of  papers  in  which  Steele  and  Addison  sketched  the  character 
and  the  career  of  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  was,  in  fact,  the  earliest 
of  serial  stories.  In  Literature,  as  in  life,  he  is  a  wise  child 
who  knows  his  own  father;  and  a  writer  may  have  supposed 
himself  to  be  a  nameless  orphan  when  in  reality  he  is  the  miss- 
ing heir  of  many  honorable  ancestors. 

Prose  fiction  may  be  the  offspring  of  the  epic  and  it  may 
have  received  a  rich  legacy  from  the  essay;  but  it  has  grown 
to  maturity  under  the  guardianship  of  the  drama,  and  in  the 
closest  comradeship  with  both  comedy  and  tragedy.  The 
earher  novelists,  Cervantes,  Le  Sage,  and  Fielding,  had  all 
begun  as  playwrights;  so  also  had  the  later,  Hugo  and  Dumas. 


16  APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE 

The  influence  of  Comeille  and  Racine  on  Mme.  de  La  Fayette 
is  as  indisputable  as  the  influence  of  Moliere  on  Le  Sage  and 
of  Ben  Jonson  on  Dickens.  And  since  it  has  become  the 
dominant  literary  form,  the  novel  has  in  its  turn  served  as  a 
stimulant  to  the  drama.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  tracing  the 
impression  made  by  "Gil  Bias  "  on  the  "Marriage  of  Figaro" 
and  by  "Gotz  von  Berlichingen "  on  "Ivanhoe."  Nor  can 
any  disinterested  inquirer  dispute  that  the  social  dramas  of 
Dumas  fils  and  of  Augier  are  deeply  indebted  to  the  "  Human 
Comedy"  of  Balzac,  and  that  the  comedies  of  Mr.  Pinero  and 
Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones  owe  much  to  the  mixture  of  humor 
and  pathos  to  be  found  in  the  pages  of  Dickens  and  Thackeray. 

Once  when  an  American  painter  in  Rome  was  told  by  a 
purse-proud  picture-buyer  that  she  did  not  pretend  to  know 
anything  about  Art,  but  she  did  know  what  she  Uked,  the  irri- 
tated artist  could  not  repress  the  swift  retort,  "So  do  the 
beasts  of  the  field  !"  To  know  what  we  hke  is  only  the  begin- 
ning of  wisdom;  and  we  ought  to  be  able  to  give  good  reason 
for  the  faith  that  is  in  us.  The  French,  who  are  subtly  curious 
in  their  use  of  words,  make  a  useful  distinction  between  a 
gourmet,  the  delicate  taster,  and  a  gourmand,  the  gross-feeder; 
and  the  distinction  holds  in  Literature  as  well  as  in  life.  The 
wise  Goethe  tells  us  that  "there  are  three  classes  of  readers  — 
some  enjoy  without  judgment,  some  judge  without  enjoyment; 
some  there  are  who  judge  while  they  enjoy  and  who  enjoy 
while  they  judge."  It  is  within  our  power  always  to  gain 
admittance  into  this  third  group  and  to  attain  a  reasoned 
appreciation  of  the  authors  whose  writings  we  relish. 

Indeed,  we  may  even  acquire  an  open-mindedness  which 
will  carry  us  a  little  farther,  until  we  can  understand  how  it 
is  that  sometimes  we  admire  what  we  do  not  personally  enjoy, 
and  that  on  other  occasions  we  may  for  the  moment  find  pleas- 
ure in  what  we  do  not  greatly  admire.  We  can  learn  to 
control  our  likings;   and  in  time  we  can  correct  our  instinc- 


APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE  17 

tive  tendency  to  let  our  personal  preferences  erect  themselves 
into  eternal  standards.  Of  course,  these  personal  preferences 
must  ever  be  the  basis  of  our  ultimate  judgments,  since  we 
are  born  always  ^\ath  a  bias  in  favor  of  one  school  or  of  the 
other.  Our  native  tendency  is  toward  the  ancient  or  toward 
the  modem,  and  we  are  by  instinct  either  romanticists  or 
realists,  whether  we  are  conscious  of  this  prejudice  or  not. 
Our  opinions  may  be  as  the  leaves  that  change  color  with  the 
revolving  seasons;  but  our  principles  are  rooted  in  us.  It  is 
fate,  rather  than  free  will,  which  decides  for  us  in  which  camp 
we  will  find  ourselves  enlisted.  Before  we  were  bom  it  was 
settled  for  each  of  us,  once  for  all,  whether  we  should  delight 
in  the  massive  simphcity  of  the  Attic  dramatists  with  their 
unerring  union  of  a  content  of  high  value  with  a  form  that 
seems  to  be  inevitable;  or  whether  we  should  revel  rather  in 
the  rich  luxuriance  and  bold  energy  of  the  Ehzabethans;  the 
one  moving  majestically  with  the  sweep  of  a  glacier,  and  the 
other  boiling  over  with  the  impatience  of  a  volcano. 

But  even  if  we  cannot  help  being  partizans,  we  ought  to 
strive  to  master  our  prejudices  so  that  we  may  learn  at  least 
to  imderstand  the  spirit  of  the  masterpieces  wrought  by  those 
with  whom  we  are  not  in  accord.  The  critic  needs  not  only 
insight  and  equipment;  his  task  calls  also  for  sjonpathy  and 
for  disinterestedness.  The  code  of  criticism  is  not  as  the  law 
of  the  Medes  and  Persians  which  altereth  not;  it  changes 
from  race  to  race  and  from  epoch  to  epoch;  it  is  modified  by 
the  successive  movements  of  human  feeling  and  of  human 
thought. 

The  scholars  of  the  Renaissance,  secure  in  their  inheritance 
of  Greek  wisdom,  had  a  sublime  behef  in  the  comprehensive- 
ness and  in  the  certainty  of  their  knowledge;  but  now  in  this 
new  twentieth  century  of  ours  we  modems  — 

"Whom  vapors  work  for,  yet  who  scorn  a  ghost, 
Amid  enchantments,  disenchanted  most"  — 
c 


18  APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE 

we  are  at  last  aware  that  we  are  but  peering  through  a  chance 
crack  in  the  dark  wall  which  shuts  us  in,  and  that  we  can  only 
glimpse  a  fragment  of  knowledge,  glad  that  even  so  little  is 
granted  to  us.  We  have  surrendered  the  hope  of  ever  attain- 
ing final  truth;  but  none  the  less  are  we  still  nerved  by  the 
longing  for  it.  Perhaps  there  are  a  few  who  would  echo 
Lessing's  proud  declaration  that  he  valued  the  privilege  of 
seeking  the  truth  above  the  actual  possession  of  it. 

Criticism  must  needs  lag  behind  creation,  even  if  literary 
criticism  may  be  also  creation  itself  in  its  own  fashion.  The 
critic  cannot  do  his  work  until  after  the  lyrist  and  the  drama- 
tist and  the  orator  have  done  theirs.  It  is  on  them  that  he 
feeds,  and  from  their  unconscious  practice  he  derives  his  rea- 
soned principles.  In  fact,  it  is  only  when  the  earlier  impulse 
of  poetry  was  beginning  to  slacken  a  httle,  that  the  critic  came 
forward  to  undertake  his  parasitic  task.  He  felt  it  to  be  his 
duty,  as  indeed  it  is,  to  apply  to  the  present  the  standards  of 
the  past;  and  it  was  long  before  he  was  willing  to  recognize 
the  possibility  that  these  standards  might  be  found  in  the 
living  languages  as  well  as  in  the  dead. 

Apparently  the  earliest  attempt  to  hold  up  a  modem  author 
as  worthy  of  detailed  study  was  in  1373,  when  Boccaccio  began 
his  lectures  on  Dante;  and  so  late  as  1768,  when  Gray  was 
appointed  to  a  chair  of  Modern  Literature  and  Languages  at 
Cambridge,  he  did  not  feel  himself  bound  —  so  Lowell  notes 
—  to  perform  "any  of  its  functions  except  that  of  receiving 
his  salary."  Yet,  even  then,  Lessing  had  already  conceived 
of  Literature  as  a  single  whole,  however  multiform  its  mani- 
festations might  be  in  many  tongues.  Lessing  is  the  first  of 
modern  critics,  as  he  is  the  foremost;  and  he  pointed  out  the 
path  of  progress  to  Sainte-Beuve,  to  Taine,  and  to  Brunetiere. 
It  is  due  to  their  investigation  into  the  laws  which  govern  the 
evolution  of  Literature  that  the  attitude  of  criticism  is  now 
more  tolerant,  and  indeed  more  modest,  than  it  was  when 
Ronsardfelt  himself  authorized  to  speak  of  the  "naive  facihty" 


APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE  19 

of  Homer,  and  when  Milton,  with  all  his  admiration,  deemed 
that  Shakspere  "warbled  native  woodnotes  wild."  Thoreau 
anticipated  our  later  opinion  when  he  asserted  that  "in  Homer 
and  in  Chaucer  there  is  more  of  the  serenity  and  innocence  of 
youth  than  in  the  more  modern  and  moral  poets." 

Brunetiere  was  perhaps  the  most  suggestive  of  recent 
Hterary  critics,  abounding  in  fertile  generalizations,  and 
applying  to  Art  ideas  supplied  by  Science.  Here  he  was  fol- 
lowing Taine  rather  than  Sainte-Beuve,  who  was  more  keenly 
interested  in  the  idiosyncrasies  of  individual  authors  than  in 
the  larger  movements  of  Literature.  Sainte-Beuve  preferred 
to  give  us  "biographic  psychology,"  to  borrow  Taine's  apt 
phrase.  Yet  even  in  criticism  there  are  few  real  novelties; 
Sidney's  "Defense  of  Poesy,"  for  example,  is  imitated  from 
the  Italians;  Taine's  theory  of  the  influence  of  heredity  and 
environment  is  amplified  from  Hegel;  and  the  objections 
which  adverse  critics  have  brought  against  the  veracious 
realism  of  Mr.  Howells  are  curiously  akin  to  those  that  Petro- 
nius  urged  against  the  Roman  poet,  possibly  Lucan,  who  had 
ventured  to  write  an  epic  in  which  there  was  less  inventive 
exuberance  and  more  interpretative  imagination.  Gaston 
Boissier  even  discovered  a  vague  premonition  of  the  struggle- 
for-life  theory  in  Saint  Augustine's  "City  of  God." 

Time  was  when  man  lived  in  a  cave  mitil  he  learned  how 
to  put  together  a  wooden  frame  for  a  more  commodious  dwell- 
ing; and  after  a  while  he  filled  up  this  framework  with  the 
bricks  he  had  found  out  how  to  bake,  and  traces  of  this  tem- 
porary device  are  still  e\'ident  in  the  decorations  of  the  later 
and  loftier  temples  which  the  Greeks  built  of  marble.  Only 
of  late  has  man  gone  back  to  the  primitive  frame,  putting  it 
together  now,  not  with  wood,  but  with  wrought  steel;  and  the 
sky-scraper,  however  modern  it  may  seem  to  us,  is  in  reality  a 
reversion  to  an  ancient  type  of  building.  A  similar  spectacle 
greets  us  in  all  the  arts,  especially  in  the  art  of  Literature; 


20  APPROACHES  TO  LITERATURE 

the  new  is  ever  the  old,  even  when  it  presents  itself  with  aU 
the  latest  improvements.  Genius  reveals  itself  when  the  hour 
is  ripe;  it  does  its  work  in  its  own  fashion;  it  comes  and  it  goes 
again,  leaving  us  the  richer.  There  have  been  many  men  of 
many  minds,  speaking  in  their  several  tongues;  but  Literature 
is  one  and  indivisible.  It  has  a  voice  for  every  mood.  It 
cheers  and  sustains;  it  inspires  and  uplifts;  it  lights  the  path 
for  all  of  us.  It  passes  the  flaming  torch  from  sire  to  son, 
Greece  to  Rome,  Rome  to  the  Renaissance,  the  Renaissance 
to  the  modem  world. 

"All  passes.     Art  alone 
Enduring  stays  to  us  ; 
The  bust  outlasts  the  throne, 
The  coin,  Tiberius ; 

"Even  the  gods  must  go; 
Only  the  lofty  Rime 
Not  countless  years  o'erthrow, 
Nor  long  array  of  Time." 


II 

SEMITIC   LITERATURES 

By  Richard  J.  H.  Gottheil,  Professor  of   Rabbinical 
Literature  and  the  Semitic  Languages 

Long  before  the  masterpieces  of  Greek  Literature  were 
conceived,  the  God  Nebo,  as  the  Babylonians  themselves 
explained  the  beginnings  of  their  culture,  had  brought  the  art 
of  writing  to  the  Delta  of  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates.  In 
attributing  a  divine  origin  to  this  art,  these  ancient  Semites 
emphasized  the  value  which  they  placed  upon  it;  and  their 
descendants  have  not  failed  to  follow  the  road  traced  by  their 
ancestors.  The  debt  which  Western  civilization  owes  to  the 
nearer  East  is  growing  largely  on  our  view,  the  more  archae- 
ology and  comparative  research  unravel  the  secrets  of  past 
ages,  "^wo  gifts  of  inestimable  value  we  owe  to  the  Semites. 
One  is  the  expression  in  a  tangible  and  intelligent  form  of  our 
monotheistic  Weltanschauung,  out  of  which  the  three  great 
world-religions,  Judaism,  Christianity,  and  Islam,  have  issued. 
\The  other  is  the  alphabet,  by  means  of  which  the  thoughts  and 
aspirations  which  lie  at  the  basis  of  our  modern  Western  cul- 
ture have  been  propagated.  But  while  the  great  religious 
systems  which  have  come  from  the  efforts  of  priests  and 
prophets  in  ancient  Palestine  have  had  their  counterpart  in 
other  important  systems  that  had  their  birth  in  India  and 
in  China,  the  alphabet  which  Phoenicians  and  Aramaeans 
invented  has  had  a  triumphant  march  as  a  means  of  commer- 
cial and  intellectual  intercourse  amongst  the  most  varied 
peoples.  It  seems  probable  that  writing  was  invented  in 
various  and  different  parts  of  the  globe,  in  Egypt,  in  China, 

21 


22  SEMITIC  LITERATURES 

in  America,  as  well  as  in  ancient  Babylonia.  But  none  of  the 
systems  was  destined  to  have  the  vogue  acquired  by  that  of 
the  Semites,  to  become  the  parent  also  of  the  alphabets  used 
by  tongues  so  radically  divergent  as  Indo-European,  Mongolo- 
Tartar,  and  Malay. 

sLn  dealing  with  ancient  peoples  we  are  accustomed  to  use 
the  term  Literature  with  the  greatest  possible  latitude.  We 
include  as  such  all  that  has  come  down  to  us  of  their  writ- 
ings, to  whatever  field  of  human  activity  they  may  refer. 
In  this  manner.  Literature  is  no  longer  sjoionymous  with 
belles-lettres,  but  may  comprise  treatises  upon  all  possible  sub- 
jects; including  even  business  documents  and  social  letters. 
In  this  use  of  the  word  there  is,  it  is  true,  a  certain  justifica- 
tion, above  and  beyond  that  of  mere  archaeological  convenience. 
Among  the  Semites,  the  line  of  demarcation  between  every- 
day writing  and  that  which  is  formal  and  literary  has  never 
been  drawn  clearly;  just  as  little  as  definite  forms  of  literary 
expression  have  been  reserved  for  the  treatment  of  certain 
subjects.  Jews,  Syrians,  and  Arabs  would  write  grammatical 
treatises  in  verse;  or,  if  need  be,  medical  and  legal  ones.  The 
passion  for  poetic  diction  was  supreme;  and  where  we  would 
write  an  order  in  council  or  an  official  document  in  the  ordi- 
nary, albeit  twisted,  style  of  official  parlance,  the  Arab  scribe 
will  make  it  an  occasion  for  the  exercise  of  whatever  ingenuity 
he  may  possess  in  the  turning  of  happy  phrases  and  the  collo- 
cation of  pleasing  rhymes.  But  the  purpose  of  the  present 
presentation  will  be  served  best  if  the  latitude  in  the  use  of 
the  word  Literature  be  restricted  and  the  attempt  be  made 
to  conform  to  the  more  usual  acceptation  of  the  term. 

It  is  difficult,  practically  impossible,  to  give  any  general 
characterization  of  Semitic  Literatures  as  a  whole,  for  the 
reason  that  the  historic  and  psychic  development  of  the 
Semitic  peoples  has  been  so  varied.  It  is  true  that  the  peo- 
ples which  have  produced  these  Literatures  have  kept  their 
racial  affinity  intact  to  a  surprising  degree;   and  this  despite 


SEMITIC  LITERATURES  23 

the  many  admixtures  of  foreign  blood  due  to  the  practice  of 
polygamy  which  has  always  been  more  or  less  indigenous  in 
the  East.  But  the  history  of  the  Semites  covers  so  wide  a 
period  of  time  and  traverses  so  extensive  a  part  of  the  earth's 
surface,  that  it  is  impossible  to  find  the  psychologic  unity 
of  the  whole  race.  From  the  oldest  specimen  of  Babylonian 
Literature  inscribed  upon  a  stele  of  King  Gudaca  (which  is 
dated  at  about  4000  B.c.),to  the  productions  of  modern  Arabic 
writers  in  Cairo  or  of  Hebrew  literati  in  American  ghettos,  is 
a  long  hail.  From  Southern  Mesopotamia  into  Western  Asia, 
Northern  Africa,  Europe,  and  the  cities  of  the  American  conti- 
nent, the  geographical  distribution  of  Semitic  peoples  almost 
comes  around  a  full  circle.  In  their  march  through  the  world 
they  have  come  in  contact  with  many  civilizations  and  peoples 
alien  to  them  in  race  and  in  ideals.  In  many  cases  they  were 
able  to  impress  their  own  individuality  upon  these  aliens, 
either  by  actual  conquest  or  by  the  more  durable  influence 
of  an  imposing  culture.  The  Babylonians,  forced  by  their 
movement  westward  into  the  proximity  of  Egypt  and  the 
ancient  civilizations  of  Crete  and  Asia  Minor,  knew  how  to 
impose  their  script  and  many  of  their  religious  ideas  upon  the 
whole  of  the  nearer  East  which  they  conquered.  In  the  early 
Middle  Ages  the  Arabs  did  the  same,  carrying  Asia  into 
Europe,  making  the  Mediterranean  a  propagator  of  Semitism, 
and  by  the  force  of  their  religious  enthusiasm  compelling  the 
physical  and  mental  submission  of  other  races,  Indians, 
Iranians,  Egyptians,  Berbers,  and  Goths.  ^Alone  among  the 
important  Semitic  races,  the  Jews  built  up  no  great  world- 
power;  preferring  to  exist  by  the  inner  force  of  a  long  martyr- 
dom and  to  exercise  a  spiritual  influence  by  their  presence 
everjrwhere  as  a  theocratic  people,  and  by  giving  to  the  world 
the  two  daughter  faiths,  Christianity  and  Islam.  And  they 
are  the  only  Semitic  people  that  have  survived  with  a  live  and 
active  conscience  from  the  earliest  times  down  to  the  present 
day! 


24  SEMITIC  LITERATURES 

Yet,  whatever  may  be  the  influence  exercised  by  Semitic 
peoples  upon  the  world,  and  whatever  may  be  the  forces  that 
have  originated  with  them,  they  were  themselves  influenced 
by  this  world  strongly  and  variously.  The  forces  put  out  by 
the  great  culture-peoples  of  former  times  do  not  run  in  parallel 
lines,  but  intertwine  and  intermingle.  That  which  goes  forth 
as  flood  may  return  as  an  ebb-tide.  No  one  people  is  exclu- 
sively the  giver,  no  one  entirely  the  receiver.  The  commerce 
of  the  human  mind  is  like  unto  that  of  the  body.  The  giver 
of  to-day  is  the  receiver  of  to-morrow.  And  so  it  has  been 
with  the  Semites.  Japheth  has  dwelt  in  the  tents  of  Shem; 
but  Shem,  also,  has  not  spumed  the  habitations  of  his  brother. 
A  good  deal  of  the  mythology  of  ancient  Greece  has  its  roots 
in  the  religious  conceptions  elaborated  by  Babylonian  priests ; 
many  of  the  legends  about  the  gods  on  Olympus  have  their 
origin  in  the  stories  told  about  Anu  and  Bel  and  Tammuz. 
But,  in  later  times,  Greece  repaid  its  debt  to  the  East,  by 
giving  it  a  philosophic  terminology  and  the  framework  for  a 
systematic  theology.  The  whole  Mohammedan  and  Jewish 
philosophy  of  the  Middle  Ages,  reaching  back  to  that  curious 
fusion  of  East  and  West  in  the  Neo-Platonic  Schools  of  Alex- 
andria, is  but  an  echo  of  the  thoughts  elaborated  by  Stoics 
and  Peripatetics  in  ancient  Hellas.  Jewish  tradition  has  the 
conceit  that  Plato  and  Aristotle  imbibed  wisdom  at  the  feet  of 
the  Rabbis:  a  quaintly  Eastern  method  of  acknowledging 
this  dependence.  It  is  true  that  Babylonian  astronomy  and 
medicine  and  mathematics  laid  the  basis  for  the  labors  of 
Ptolemaeus,  Galen,  Hippocrates,  and  Euchd;  but,  at  a  later 
time,  their  works  were  translated  into  Eastern  tongues  and 
their  names  became  household  ones  for  Syriac,  Hebrew,  and 
Arabic  literati.  In  our  own  day  modem  Arabic  and  Hebrew 
belles-lettres  are  strongly  under  the  influence  of  the  great 
writers  of  Western  Europe,  and  a  great  many  of  the  works  of 
Shakspere,  Dante,  Goethe,  Racine,  and  Moliere  can  be  read 
in  Semitic  translations.     It  is  these  influences  of  the  most 


SEMITIC  LITERATURES  25 

varied  forces,  historical,  religious,  philosophic,  scientific,  and 
literary,  to  which  Semitic  peoples  have  been  subject  which 
have  produced  the  varying  character  that  we  see  exhibited 
in  Semitic  Literatures. 

Of  all  the  literary  forms  in  which  mankind  has  clothed  its 
thought  and  its  feeling,  one  has  been  entirely  wanting  among 
the  Semites.  They  have  never  developed  a  drama  of  their 
own.  From  time  to  time  attempts  have  been  made  to  vindi- 
cate for  the  Semitic  people  a  sense  of  the  beautiful  inherent 
in  dramatic  presentation;  notably  in  connection  with  some 
particular  explanation  of  such  books  in  our  Bible  as  the  ''Song 
of  Solomon"  and  the  tragedy  of  Job.  But,  apart  from  the 
difficulties  of  exegesis  inherent  in  this  theory,  no  such  claim 
has  ever  been  made  by  the  people  itself  out  of  whose  loins  these 
books  have  issued,  and  it  is  quite  plain  that  they  were  never 
consciously  intended  to  be  put  upon  the  stage.  Nor  have 
other  Semitic  peoples  ever  attempted  to  fill  up  the  void.  The 
Turkish  Karakoz  or  Shadow-play,  which  of  late  years  has 
made  its  way  into  Syria  and  Egypt,  is  of  non-Semitic  origin, 
and  the  attempt  even  to  adapt  Moliere  for  the  Egyptian  stage 
has  remained  little  more  than  a  literary  curiosity.  There 
must  be  some  reasons  inherent  in  the  development  of  Semitic 
culture  that  are  opposed  to  the  development  of  the  drama, 
and  which  successfully  withstood  the  infectious  influence  of 
the  greatest  dramatic  influence  which  the  world  has  seen. 
One  is  led  to  suppose,  then,  that  the  mythological  element 
which  is  present  to  such  a  degree  in  the  ancient  drama  has 
made  it  repellent  to  the  austere  monotheism  of  the  Semites. 
It  is  true  that  the  ancient  Semites  had  their  mythology  as  well 
as  the  ancient  Greeks ;  that  they  deified  their  kings  and  human- 
ized their  gods.  Babylonian  religious  culture  is  full  of  it. 
But  even  Babylonian  religion,  as  it  proceeded  on  the  road 
from  polytheism  to  henotheism,  gradually  sublimated  these 
mythological  elements.  Traces  of  them,  only,  are  to  be  found 
in  our  Bible;    and  the  severe  monotheism  of  later  oflSicial 


26  SEMITIC  LITERATURES 

Judaism  and  Islam  made  short  work  with  these  vestiges.  The 
naive  outlook  upon  the  universe  and  its  forces  was  gone; 
and  with  it  went  the  power  to  discuss  them  even  with  playful 
seriousness.  Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  in  ancient  Greece 
the  stage  was  the  pulpit  from  which  the  great  lessons  of  life 
were  preached  to  the  multitude.  The  Jews  had  their  prophets 
and  teachers  to  do  this  work,  Mohammedans  their  preachers 
and  moralists.  In  this  manner  the  need  for  a  stage  was  not 
felt.  In  addition  to  this,  the  distinct  dislike  to  represent  the 
human  figure  in  any  form,  though  not  itself  strong  enough 
to  prevent  artistic  development  in  other  directions,  must  have 
acted  as  a  deterring  restraint. 

What  has  been  said  of  the  drama  may,  to  a  large  extent, 
be  said  also  of  epic  poetry.  "During  one  period  only  of  their 
history,  and  that  almost  at  its  birth,  have  the  Semites  devel- 
oped the  tale  of  their  supposed  heroic  times  into  an  extended 
epic.  The  Babylonian  story  of  the  doings  of  the  hero  Gilga- 
mesh,  representing  as  it  does  certain  astro-cosmological  ideas 
transferred  from  heaven  to  earth,  takes  us  back  into  the  twi- 
light of  the  gods;  but  it  had  no  real  life  beyond  the  confines 
of  that  branch  of  the  Semitic  peoples  in  which  it  had  its  birth. 
A  national  or  racial  epic  must  deal  with  a  "host  of  gods,"  or 
with  such  supernatural  powers  of  human  beings  as  bridge  over 
the  chasm  that  separates  the  human  from  the  divine.  But 
when  the  older  "host  of  gods"  became  the  "God  of  hosts," 
as  it  did  for  the  writers  of  the  Bible,  the  transcendence  of  the 
Deity  beyond  things  mundane  cut  the  very  heart  out  of  all 
such  fanciful  musings.  Jehovah,  as  very  spirit,  must  deal 
with  his  people  in  other  ways.  Heaven  was  filled  with  angels 
that  did  his  bidding,  and  saintly  men  on  earth  received  direct 
messages  to  mankind.  Ethical  monotheism  could  not  deal 
playfully  with  the  great  problems  of  the  world,  and  the  beau- 
tiful had  once  more  to  stand  aside  before  the  moral.  It  is 
true  that  many  of  the  events  narrated  in  the  epic  of  Gilgamesh 
have  filtered  down  Semitic  tradition  and  have  found  their  way 


SEMITIC   LITERATURES  27 

into  both  Bible  and  Koran.  But  they  are  embedded  there 
mainly  as  fossils;  reminiscent,  it  is  true,  of  an  earlier  life,  but 
hardly  forming  an  integral  part  of  later  Semitic  religious  con- 
cepts. Many  traits  in  the  stories  of  the  patriarchs,  such 
figures  as  those  of  Moses,  the  man  of  God,  of  Samson,  the  man 
of  strength,  of  Solomon,  the  king  of  wisdom,  of  Daniel,  the 
man  of  j  udgment,  lie  clearly  upon  the  border  line  of  mythology. 
So  does  the  figure  of  Alexander  the  Great  in  Syriac,  Hebrew, 
and  Arabic  folk-tale.  "He  of  the  Two-Horns"  is  only  a  later 
reflection  of  the  ancient  Gilgamesh;  and  the  figure  of  the 
old  Babylonian  hero  lingers  on  down  to  our  own  day,  when  it 
has  found  its  most  permanent  artistic  expression  in  Michael 
Angelo's  two-horned  Moses  in  San  Pietro  in  Vincoli  in  Rome. 
But  no  great  epic  has  grown  up  around  the  exploits  of  any  of 
these  heroes;  and  no  great  influence  was  there  to  promote  the 
writing  of  epic  poetry.  When  the  heroic  period  of  Jewish 
history  was  finished,  the  life  of  the  people  had  already  become 
one  of  pain  and  of  sorrow.  Their  thoughts  were  sad  and 
severe,  as  their  life  was  hard  and  often  unlovely.  Nor  were 
conditions  among  other  Semitic  peoples  such  as  to  favor 
the  growth  of  epic  poetry.  The  non-Jewish  Semites  of  Syria 
and  Mesopotamia  developed  into  Christian  churches,  to  whom 
matters  of  church  government  and  the  minutiae  of  belief 
primed  all  other  considerations.  Islam  was  born  into  a  world 
that  had  already  outgrown  the  stage  of  innocent  fancy  in  its 
outlook  upon  the  universe.  It  had  no  childhood  days,  but 
was  called  at  once  to  the  serious  tasks  of  man's  estate.  It  had 
to  fight  its  way  and  develop  in  an  upward  struggle  against 
civilizations  that  had  already  passed  their  zenith.  It  came 
too  early  into  contact  with  city  life;  and  the  fresh  air  of  the 
desert  was  soon  befouled  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  market- 
place. 

™^It  is  from  the  desert  that  the  Semite  has  sprung;  and  every 

new  development,  every  great  effort  has  had  its  origin  there. 

vNot  without  reason  did  the  Hebrews  imagine  that  their  life 


28  SEMITIC  LITERATURES 

in  the  wilderness  was  the  pre-qualification  for  their  entrance 
into  the  Holy  Land  of  promise.  All  the  great  movements 
in  Islamic  history  have  been  engendered  and  nourished  in  the 
desert,  from  the  time  of  Mohammed  himself  down  to  that  of 
the  modern  Wahebis,  Mahdists,  and  Senoussis.  —The  desert 
has  conserved  the  pure  joy  of  living,  and  though  it  has  trained 
its  dwellers  to  hardiness  of  body  and  firnmess  of  purpose,  it 
has  at  the  same  time  preserved  in  them  a  simplicity  of  mind. 
It  is  these  characteristics  that  have  enabled  the  Arabian  desert 
to  produce  the  only  other  Semitic  epic  of  which  we  have  any 
knowledge.  The  exploits  of  the  black  hero  Antara,  his  deeds 
of  prowess  and  his  magnanimity  may  be  heard  to-day  in  prose 
and  verse  as  one  sits  to  coffee  in  Cairo,  Alexandria,  or  Beirut. 
But,  though  told  in  the  city,  they  breathe  the  true  air  and 
spirit  of  the  desert.  And,  though  pitched  in  a  minor  key  and 
entirely  free  from  every  supernatural  admixture,  they  are 
truly  epic  in  character,  as  they  depict  all  the  virtues  dear  to 
the  roving  spirit  of  the  Arab,  intrepidity,  courage,  and  hos- 
pitality. 

'It  is  in  Ijo-ic  poetry  that  the  Semitic  muse  has  found  its 
fullest  literary  expression.  A  great  deal  of  this  poetry  is,  it  is 
true,  religious  in  character,  because  religion  has  played  so 
large  a  part  in  the  life  of  Semitic  peoples.  But,  from  time 
to  time,  secular  poetry  has  been  cultivated  as  well.  Whether 
such  secular  poetry  ever  existed  in  ancient  Babylonia  and 
Syria,  we  cannot  tell.  Whatever  has  come  down  to  us  en- 
graven upon  clay  tablets  is  in  the  form  of  prayers,  of  psalms, 
and  of  litanies,  expressive  entirely  of  the  higher  aspirations  of 
the  people,  or  of  their  fears  of  evil  that  could  be  warded  off 
only  by  the  right  word  spoken  at  the  proper  moment.  That 
this  poetry  affects  the  style,  known  to  Egyptian  and  early 
Hebrew  Literature,  called  parallelismus  membrorum,  in  which 
the  clauses  of  a  verse  bear  a  definite  relation  to  each  other,  is 
certain.  Whether  it  passed  beyond  that  and  attained  to  an 
accentuating  rhythm  has  not  yet  been  proven.     But  some  of 


SEMITIC  LITERATURES  29 

the  psalms  indited  by  these  priests  and  singers  of  long  ago 
reveal  a  depth  of  feeling,  a  consciousness  of  sin,  and  a  burning 
desire  for  forgiveness,  that  place  them  side  by  side  with  the 
noblest  productions  of  the  ancient  Hebrew  Muse  and  the  re- 
ligious writings  of  the  prophets.  It  is,  therefore,  evident  that 
the  psalmists  and  prophets  of  the  Bible  do  not  stand  altogether 
alone  as  the  unique  product  of  a  single  branch  of  the  Semitic 
family.  They  and  their  work  were  part  and  parcel  of  the 
great  Semitic  tradition,  under  the  ban  of  which  stood  the  whole 
of  Western  Asia  from  the  Persian  Gulf  to  the  Mediterranean 
Sea. 

And  yet  Hebrew  poetry  has  certain  characteristics  which 
single  it  out  for  special  comment.  It  is  the  form  in  which  a 
good  deal  of  our  Bible  has  been  written,  and  in  this  manner  it 
has  acquired  for  us  a  pecuhar  meaning  and  significance.  To 
write  poetry,  religious  or  secular,  never  became  the  preroga- 
tive of  a  single  class;  priests,  prophets,  and  laymen  all  made 
use  of  it  to  express  their  inmost  feelings.  Nor  has  it  ever  lost 
the  freshness  of  its  source  during  the  long  vista  of  years  that 
stretches  from  the  earliest  writings  to  be  found  in  the  Bible 
down  to  the  present  day.  Like  those  whose  thoughts  its 
words  expressed,  it  has  suffered  the  contact  of  all  the  forces  to 
which  they  have  been  exposed  and  in  which  they  have  been 
molded  successively.  Yet,  it  has  remained  substantially 
the  same.  At  first,  it  is  the  naive  and  untrammeled  expres- 
sion of  a  semi-agricultural  people,  with  its  songs  of  the  well, 
its  rough  poems  of  victory,  its  laments  over  fallen  heroes,  its 
Jove-songs  put  into  the  mouth  of  an  ideahzed  king.  Tn  the 
service  of  Faith,  it  is  enthroned  in  hymns  for  public  service 
or  for  private  use,  in  adorations,  prayers,  and  supplications. 
It  takes  the  message  of  the  human  heart  in  all  its  manifoj^d 
changes  and  wings  them  heavenward.  It  bespeaks  the  sorrow 
of  the  sin-laden  individual  or  of  the  community  bowed  down 
in  public  grief.  During  the  Middle  Ages  it  comes  under  the 
influence  of  its  Arabic  peers.     It  adopts  the  whole  outward 


30  SEMITIC  LITERATURES 

form  of  its  more  fortunate  brother.  In  modern  times  it  must 
perforce  take  on  a  modern  dress;  and  the  great  Italian,  Eng- 
lish, German,  and  French  poets  become  its  models.  During 
the  Biblical  period  the  form  is  rugged,  the  license  with  which 
the  poet  moves  is  great;  so  much  so  that  even  to  this  day  and 
despite  the  many  theories  that  have  been  put  forward,  the 
proper  scanning  of  Biblical  verse,  if  there  is  any  such  scanning, 
is  still  unknown.  In  the  Arabic  period  it  is  the  Kasidah  that 
holds  sway,  and  the  old  tongue  is  forced  to  sing  in  Arabic 
metres.  After  the  Reformation,  canto,  terzett,  and  hexame- 
ter exert  their  influence;  and  our  Hebrew  poets  of  to-day — 
for  the  ancient  tongue  has  never  died  out — have  a  freedom  of 
expression  and  a  privilege  to  develop  the  language  which  their 
forbears  would  have  envied.  Yet,  throughout  all,  it  is  the 
same  noble  language  of  the  Bible  that  speaks  and  sings,  the 
same  simple  constructions  that  please  and  fascinate.  It  is 
true  that  a  great  deal  of  Israel's  post-Biblical  poetry  is  of  a 
purely  religious  character;  religion,  up  to  recent  times,  was 
the  all  in  all  to  those  that  sang  and  to  those  that  listened. 
But  in  Spain  and  in  modern  times,  these  exclusive  fetters 
have  been  cast  off.  Love  and  wine  and  the  lighter  moments 
of  human  existence  found  expression  also.  Hebrew  was  not 
only  a  church  language;  it  was  the  medium  of  intercourse 
between  the  scattered  members  of  the  Jewish  people,  and  al- 
most the  only  means  by  which  they  expressed  thought  and 
feeling. 

Unfortunately,  this  cannot  be  said  of  the  literary  develop- 
ment of  Oriental  Christians.  But  those  living  in  Syria  and 
Mesopotamia,  and  the  later  converts  in  the  highlands  of 
Ethiopia,  have  produced  a  large,  and  in  some  ways  an  impor- 
tant body  of  Literature.  The  first  of  these,  the  most  promi- 
nent survival  of  the  Aramaic  race,  preserved  its  language 
merely  as  a  Church  tongue.  The  Arabic  invasion  in  the 
seventh  century  did  not  only  level  all  political  distinctions; 
it  routed,  also,  the  civilizations  with  which  it  came  in  contact. 


SEMITIC  LITERATURES  31 

after  having  taken  from  them  those  elements  that  it  lacked 
itself.  In  addition,  it  drove  the  tongues  in  which  these  civi- 
lizations were  articulate  out  of  the  highways  and  byways 
into  remote  regions  and  mountain  fastnesses.  Many  Persian- 
speaking  districts  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  Califate  gave  way 
to  the  language  of  the  desert,  just  as  in  the  far  West  the  Gothic 
tongue  of  Spain  was  supplanted  by  that  of  the  conquering 
Arabs.  In  the  same  manner,  within  a  hundred  years  after 
the  entrance  of  the  Arabs  into  Syria  and  Mesopotamia,  the 
Syriac  language  had  ceased  to  exist  as  a  language  of  the  people 
and  had  taken  refuge  in  the  hills  of  the  Anti-Lebanon,  in  the 
mountains  of  the  Kurdistan  and  in  far-off  Azerbaijan,  in 
which  places  it  is  still  spoken  by  remnants  of  Aramaean  peoples. 
Apart,  then,  from  a  few  folk-poems  and  village  songs,  Syriac 
poetry,  in  the  main,  is  of  a  rehgious  character.  Despite  a 
certain  formality  and  stiffness,  and  up  to  the  time  when  it 
made  way  for  the  Arabic,  it  has  produced  some  poets  of  real 
merit,  such  as  Saint  Ephrahn,  Isaac  of  Antioch,  Jacob  of  Serug; 
but  the  range  in  which  even  they  allowed  their  poetic  feeling  to 
wander  is  constrained.  The  lighter  touch  that  comes  from 
livinginand  with  the  world  is  wanting;  the  odor  of  the  cloister 
and  of  the  monk's  cell  pervades  it  all.  The  same  is  true,  only 
in  a  much  wider  degree,  of  Ethiopic  poetry.  The  written 
language  was  a  creation  of  the  Church;  and  whatever  need 
was  felt  to  express  feelings  in  versified  form  kept  to  the  end  the 
impress  of  this  origin. 

In  addition  to  the  Hebrews,  the  Arabs  are  the  only  Semitic 
people  of  consequence  that  have  developed  the  art  of  literary 
expression  untrammeled  by  the  fetters  of  a  church.  They 
are  the  only  ones  that  have  lived  in  the  invigorating  air  of  a 
national  home,  and  that  have  developed  the  full  life  of  a  people 
conscious  of  its  strength.  The  evident  result  of  this  is  seen 
in  their  rich  and  many-sided  Literature  and  in  the  great  mass 
of  lyric  poetry  they  have  produced.  Some  innate  love  for 
poetic  diction  must  have  been  ingrained  in  the  very  nature  of 


32  SEMITIC  LITERATURES 

the  Arab.  For  even  before  the  art  of  writing  had  been  de- 
veloped among  these  roving  spirits  of  the  desert,  the  tribal 
bard  sang  of  his  love,  of  his  chase,  and  of  his  camel.  Even  in 
the  desert,  where  the  art  of  living  even  is  difl&cult  and  comfort 
is  wanting,  where  the  possession  of  a  flock  means  riches  and  a 
few  extra  tents  ease  and  contentment,  the  poet  was  an  un- 
crowned king.  A  phrase  beautifully  turned  was  enough  to 
put  aside  the  wrath  of  the  powerful;  a  few  rhymes  aptly  strung 
could  dominate  the  uncontrolled  spirit  of  a  Beduin  chieftain. 
And  even  when  the  Beduin  turned  into  the  denizen  of  the 
city,  and  when  the  tribal  chief  became  the  calif  and  the  sultan 
of  a  more  or  less  organized  community,  the  love  of  happy 
diction  retained  its  ascendancy.  The  poet  was  not  less 
honored  in  the  palaces  of  Damascus,  of  Bagdad,  and  of  Cor- 
dova than  he  was  around  the  fire  of  a  desert  encampment. 
But  the  home  and  the  well-spring  of  poetic  expression  still 
remained  the  pure  air  of  the  great  sand  sea;  and  eminent 
philologists  even,  in  their  search  for  the  hidden  meanings  of 
obsolete  words  or  for  the  correct  use  of  certain  expressions, 
were  accustomed  to  send  for  information  to  some  desert  tribe. 
Mohammed  himself  was  quite  afraid  of  the  power  of  the  poets; 
and  in  consigning  them  to  the  lowest  limbo  of  Purgatory,  si- 
lently acknowledged  the  power  they  wielded.  The  stream  of 
poetic  composition  has  flowed  on  uninterruptedly  from  those 
early  times  down  to  the  present  day. 

The  form  in  which  the  Arabs  write  their  poetry  is  that  of  a 
quantitative  meter,  each  line  consisting  of  two  equal  halves, 
the  first  pair  rhyming  and  the  same  rhyme  being  kept  through- 
out the  poem  at  the  end  of  the  second  half  of  the  line.  It 
might  be  thought  that  this  exigency  of  rhyme  would  stultify 
and  formalize  poetic  effort;  but  so  supple  is  the  Arabic  tongue, 
and  so  extensive  is  the  Arabic  vocabulary,  that  the  danger 
was  most  happily  avoided.  Arabic  verse  never  descends 
to  mere  rhyming  alliteration.  At  an  early  period  meter 
became  greatly  diversified,  the  schoolmen  laying  down  six- 


SEMITIC  LITERATURES  33 

teen  different  ones  as  canonical.  Popular  poetry,  however, 
continued  to  develop  these  forms  and  to  add  to  their  number. 
It  became  the  custom  to  open  the  poem,  or  Kasidah,  as  it  was 
termed,  with  a  true  desert  scene,  a  view  of  the  vestiges  of  the 
camp  left  by  the  tribe  of  which  the  loved  maiden  was  a  mem- 
ber. This  is  followed  by  a  description  of  the  desert  beauty 
and  an  account  of  the  poet's  own  prowess,  intermingled  with  a 
detailed  picture  of  his  camel  and  his  daily  life.  This  classical 
form  of  the  Kasidah  did  not,  however,  become  quite  stereo- 
typed. The  true  poetic  spirit  outbalanced  the  influence 
towards  conventionality.  When  the  petty  court  at  Al-Hirah 
and  the  larger  one  at  Damascus  brought  the  Beduin  Arab  into 
a  wider  circle  of  life,  he  began  to  sing  of  other  themes;  or,  at 
least,  to  give  a  heightened  color  to  former  ones.  Persian  in- 
fluences at  Al-Hirah,  Byzantine  ones  at  Damascus,  developed 
his  innate  love  for  the  charms  of  poetry.  At  Damascus,  also, 
the  comparative  luxuriousness  of  life  introduced  that  sensual 
element  which  must  in  a  measure  color  all  true  art.  The 
Court  of  the  Umayyids  became  a  center  where  Literature  was 
prized,  and  minnesingers  vied  for  applause  and  for  more 
substantial  gifts.  Not  pietistic,  and  yet  good  Mohammedans, 
the  Syrian  cahfs  were  not  averse  to  the  chase,  and  to  wine, 
and  to  physical  beauty;  and  their  court  poets  put  their  mas- 
ters' feelings  into  verse.  Few  singers  of  love  have  equaled 
Omar  ibn  Abi  Rabi'a;  few  have  contended  with  each  other  in 
biting  satire  as  did  Jarir  and  Farozdak.  There  were  Chris- 
tian poets,  as  Al-Ahtal,  and  female  ones,  as  Lailah  and  al- 
Khansa.  At  Bagdad,  and  under  the  Abbasides,  the  horizon 
of  the  poet  was  still  further  widened.  The  influence  of  Per- 
sian mysticism  became  more  pronounced,  the  wealth  of  im- 
agery more  abundant,  and  court  poets  dogged  the  footsteps 
of  Harun  al-Rashid  and  al-Ma'mun.  Even  the  sultanlets  of 
Mesopotamian  principalities  followed  the  lead  of  their  greater 
masters.  It  was  at  the  Court  of  Hamdanite  Saif  al-Daulah 
in  Aleppo  (948)  that  al-Mutanabbi  lived,  who  developed  to 


34  SEMITIC  LITERATURES 

the  utmost  the  possibilities  of  the  old  Arabic  Kasidah  and 
thus  marks  the  end  of  the  classical  period  of  Arabic  poetry. 

Nor  were  the  Mohammedan  powers  that  were  further  re- 
moved from  the  heart  of  the  Empire  less  expressive  of  their 
love  for  the  rhyming  word.  Mohammedan  Egypt  and  Mo- 
hammeda,n  Spain  have  also  produced  their  poets;  but  these 
poets  were  bound  less  securely  by  the  bonds  of  tradition,  and 
they  favored  the  introduction  of  new  and  more  popular  metri- 
cal forms.  The  old  Kasidah,  with  its  set  meters,  made  way 
for  the  Muwashshah,  the  strophic  poem,  and  for  the  Zajal,  a 
sort  of  ottave  rime,  probably  under  the  influence  of  non- 
Arabic  surroundings. 

Finally,  the  love  of  the  Arab  for  his  national  poetry  is  seen 
also  in  the  care  which  he  took  to  preserve  it.  During  the 
second  and  third  centuries  of  the  Hijrah  many  collections  were 
commenced  which  were  to  treasure  up  the  productions  of  the 
Arab  muse  for  the  enjoyment  of  future  generations.  These 
collections  were  made  in  various  ways;  the  poems  written  by 
members  of  a  single  tribe  were  gathered  together,  or  those 
dealing  with  a  single  subject;  or  those  poems  which  were  con- 
sidered to  be  the  most  remarkable  from  one  or  the  other  point 
of  view  were  brought  together,  and  in  course  of  time  antholo- 
gies grew  up  in  which  all  manner  of  virtues  and  vices  received 
their  meed  of  praise  and  blame  at  the  hands  of  the  most  noted 
poets. 

There  is  one  form  of  literary  expression  which  deserves 
special  mention;  for  the  Arab  has  cultivated  it  to  a  surprising 
degree,  and  he  has  found  imitators  among  other  Semitic 
peoples.  I  refer  to  rhjoned  prose,  that  elevated  diction  which 
stands  upon  the  border  line  between  prose  and  poetry,  and  in 
which  the  individual  prose  phrases  are  held  together  by  the 
rhyme.  The  excessive  value  in  which  it  was  held  by  the 
Arabs  is,  no  doubt,  due  to  the  fact  that  it  was  employed 
largely  by  Mohammed  in  his  Koran.  From  here  it  passed 
to  the  religious  preachers  who,  in  the  gatherings  of  the  faithful 


SEMITIC  LITERATURES  35 

on  Fridays,  intercalated  it  into  their  Khutbahs.  From  the 
preachers  it  passed  to  the  official  scribes  and  secretaries,  and 
from  them  into  general  Literature.  Poets  and  poetasters, 
historians  and  biographers,  easily  fell  into  the  groove,  and  the 
preface  to  nearly  every  Arabic  book  bears  witness  to  the 
delight  of  the  Arab  for  assonance  and  rhyme.  As  pure  Lit- 
erature it  has  found  its  highest  expression  in  the  Makamahs 
of  al-Hamadani  and  al-Hariri,  those  fine  examples  of  the 
literary  tale,  where  the  plot  is  nothing  more  than  a  series  of 
pegs  upon  which  to  hang  all  the  evidence  of  the  richness  of 
the  Arabic  vocabulary  and  the  ingenuity  of  the  author.  A 
good  imitation  of  al-Hariri  is  to  be  found  in  the  Hebrew 
Makamahs  of  al-Harizi;  a  less  literary  but  still  more  inge- 
nious copy  in  those  of  the  Syriac  writer  Ebed  Yesu. 

This  tendency  to  rhymed  prose  and  to  alliteration  marks 
the  charm  of  Semitic  prose- writing  in  general.  If  we  add  to 
this  a  certain  stateliness  and  grandeur,  we  can  understand  the 
attraction  it  has  always  had  for  the  Western  ear.  All  of  these 
characteristics  are  very  evident  in  the  prose  of  the  Bible.  It 
is  these  characteristics  that  have  led  noted  scholars  to  imagine 
that  some  metrical  scheme  must  lie  at  the  base  even  of  the 
stories  contained  in  the  Book  of  Genesis.  Unfortunately, 
this  grandeur  and  this  alliteration  are  not  always  apparent 
in  our  translations  of  the  Bible.  The  simplicity  of  Hebrew 
constructions  is  apt  to  become  monotonous  in  a  modern 
tongue;  the  alliterations  and  assonances  are  easily  lost,  and 
the  peculiar  cadences  refuse  reproduction.  One  has  to  read 
in  the  original  the  simple  stories  of  the  patriarchs,  the  tales  of 
the  wars  for  Jehovah's  sake,  the  descriptions  of  the  glories  of 
kings  and  prmces,  in  order  to  appreciate  their  full  literary 
value. 

"It  is  generally  thought  that  Hebrew  Literature  ended  with 
the  final  canonization  of  the  Bible  as  the  Book  of  the  Jewish 
Church.  We  have  already  seen  that  this  was  not  the  case  as 
regards  poetry.     It  was  still  less  so  in  the  case  of  prose.     It  is 


36  SEMITIC  LITERATURES 

true  that  other  languages  forced  themselves  upon  the  Jews 
as  a  means  of  daily  intercourse.  Already  in  late  Biblical 
times  this  was  true  of  Aramaic;  but  though  prose  and  poetry 
were  written  in  this  sister  dialect  both  within  the  Synagogue 
and  without,  Hebrew  maintained  its  place  as  a  literary  lan- 
guage of  the  people.  Nearly  all  the  so-called  apocryphal 
writings  were  originally  in  Hebrew,  and  perhaps  some  parts 
of  the  New  Testament.  In  the  Talmuds  and  in  the  homiletic 
Literature  of  the  Talmudic  period  (the  Midrashim),  we  find  a 
mixture  of  the  two  dialects,  a  cross  between  the  literary 
Hebrew  and  the  more  popular  Aramaic.  But  all  through  the 
Middle  Ages  and  down  to  our  own  day,  we  have  a  long  line  of 
writers  in  Hebrew  upon  all  conceivable  subjects:  history, 
biography,  linguistics,  ethics,  and  especially  theology  and 
casuistry;  until,  in  modem  times,  the  printing-press  and  the 
newspaper  speak  to  us  in  a  language  derived  directly  from 
that  in  which  the  prophets  of  old  delivered  their  harangues. 
And,  at  the  present,  from  being  the  language  of  learned  in- 
tercourse and  of  literary  expression,  Hebrew  bids  fair  to  have 
a  new  lease  of  life  in  the  Holy  Land  as  the  tongue  of  a  recon- 
stituted people. 

No  such  revived  Hfe  awaits  the  Syriac.  Its  place  has  been 
taken  by  Arabic,  Turkish,  and  Kurdish.  Syriac  has  remained 
purely  a  Church  language.  It  produces  no  Literature  to-day, 
and  even  in  the  Church  service  its  days  are  numbered.  What- 
ever prose  works  it  produced  down  to  the  thirteenth  century, 
when  production  practically  ceased,  are  with  very  few  excep- 
tions of  a  rehgious  character  or  deal  with  religious  subjects. 
There  is  much  that  is  noble  in  the  homilies  and  sermons  and 
Bible  commentaries  composed  by  Nestorian  and  Jacobite  ec- 
clesiastics. The  Holy  Ephraem,  Philoxenus  of  Mabry,  and 
Jacob  Burdeana,  in  their  various  writings,  show  us  what  expres- 
sion the  Syriac  language  is  capable  of  when  it  is  pure  at  its 
source  and  undefiled;  while  the  numerous  Acts  of  the  Martyrs, 
the  Histories  of  holy  men,  the  Romances  of  Addai  and  the 


SEMITIC  LITERATURES  37 

Christ,  of  the  Seven  Sleepers  of  Ephesus,  and  of  the  Emperor 
JuHan  are  sufl&cient  evidence  that  imagination  was  not  want- 
ing even  in  the  cell  of  the  monk  and  the  study  of  the  cloister. 
But  there  was  an  additional  reason  that  prevented  Syriac  Lit- 
erature from  flowing  unobstructed  in  channels  of  its  own.  We 
have  seen  that  it  was  held  within  strict  limits  by  Church  and 
religious  tradition.  Its  development  was  also  retarded  by 
the  fascinating  influence  of  Greek  wisdom.  In  the  late  Greek 
schools  of  Syria  and  Mesopotamia,  both  Nestorian  and  Jacob- 
ite clerics  had  become  acquainted  with  Greek  Literature  and 
with  Greek  Science.  Homer,  Plato,  and  Aristotle,  to  mention 
only  a  few,  represented  to  them  the  great  outside  world  and 
satisfied  their  natural  longing  for  a  wider  and  a  more  compre- 
hensive knowledge.  They  translated  many  of  the  great  works 
of  Greek  thinkers  into  their  own  Syriac  and  followed  this  up 
with  similar  renderings  of  Greek  historical  and  Church  writ- 
ings. Later  Syriac  Literature  is  thus  in  the  thraldom  of  a 
foreign  bondage.  Caught  between  the  Church  and  Hellas, 
all  initiative  was  driven  out.  But  even  as  a  Literature  of 
translation  it  rendered  two  noble  services  to  the  world  of 
thought  and  to  Literature.  It  was  the  stepping-stone  on 
which  Eastern  imagery  passed  over  from  Asia  into  Europe. 
The  Panchatantra,  or  Fables  of  Bidpai,  was  translated  from 
the  Pahlavi  by  Syriac-speaking  monks;  from  Syriac  into 
Arabic  and  Hebrew,  and  from  Hebrew  into  the  various 
languages  of  modem  Europe,  providing  entertainment  and 
enjoyment  wherever  it  went.  It  was  the  same  with  the 
great  Sagirite.  Middle  Age  Europe  would  have  known 
little  of  this  tremendous  mind,  and  both  Jewish  and  Moham- 
medan thought  would  have  remained  without  the  terminology 
with  which  they  were  able  to  turn  their  theology  into  a  re- 
ligious philosophy,  had  not  these  translators  into  Syriac  made 
the  "Organon"  and  other  similar  works  available  to  the 
Oriental  mind. 
We  have  seen  that  Arabic  rhymed  prose  had  its  origin  in  the 


38  SEMITIC  LITERATURES 

Koran.  The  ordinary  prose  of  the  Arabs  had  a  similar  be- 
ginning. In  the  wonderful  development  of  Islam,  few  ele- 
ments are  more  surprising  than  the  influence  exerted  by  its 
founder  in  almost  all  the  walks  of  life.  Great  teachers  had 
existed  before  him  who  had  founded  religious  and  ethical 
systems  to  which  millions  of  human  beings  have  given  their 
adhesion.  They  have  been  the  great  central  fire  from  which 
later  times  have  drawn  their  inspiration.  But  in  none  of  the 
great  systems  has  the  influence  of  one  man  been  so  all-per- 
vading as  has  that  of  Mohammed,  the  Arabian  prophet. 
Religion,  ethics,  law,  social  and  political  science,  all  these, 
as  far  as  Mohammedans  are  concerned,  are  based  upon  what 
he  is  believed  to  have  said  and  to  have  done.  It  was  also  his 
boast  that  he  had  given  to  his  people  a  Bible  and  that  he  had 
raised  them  to  the  position  of  lettered  folk,  on  a  par  with 
"the  people  of  a  Book,"  as  Jews  and  Christians  were  called. 
In  the  Koran,  Arabic  prose  was  put  to  writing  for  the  first 
time.  It  was  Mohammed  who  commenced  to  fix  definitely 
for  his  people  the  supposed  history  of  the  past  and  to  transmit 
in  literary  form  the  legends  about  their  predecessors  which 
they  had  heard  from  their  neighbors.  It  is  true  that  he  had 
parametic  ends  in  view.  But,  in  doing  so,  he  excited  an  in- 
terest in  the  past  that  was  destined  never  to  wane  again.  In 
opposition  to  the  poets,  he  gave  a  literary  value  to  prose  which 
it  had  not  previously  possessed.  His  example  was  followed 
in  this  matter  also.  The  poets  continued  to  sing  of  the  val- 
iant deeds  of  their  tribesmen;  but,  in  putting  their  poems 
into  writing,  they  or  others  did  not  now  scruple  to  prefix  to 
the  poetry  a  prose  description  of  the  events  and  persons  con- 
cerned. In  this  manner  Arabic  historiography  was  born. 
A  long  line  of  annalists  and  historians  testify  to  the  worthy 
interest  these  men  and  their  readers  had  in  their  own  history 
and  in  that  of  their  neighbors.  Mohammedanism  was  born 
in  the  full  light  of  day,  and  its  historians,  more  than  those  of 
any  other  people  or  religious  body,  have  collected  the  materials 


SEMITIC  LITERATURES  39 

which  permit  us  to  look  into  every  nook  and  corner  of  their 
manifold  doings.  It  would  be  useless  to  mention  the  names  of 
these  many  writers,  from  the  great  biographer  of  the  prophet, 
Ibn  Ishak  (733),  and  the  excellent  annahst,  al-Tabari  (738), 
down  to  the  first  philosopher  of  history,  Ibn  Khaldun  (1332). 
Each  division  of  the  various  Mohammedan  empires  has  its 
own  historians;  each  country  and  each  principal  city.  The 
lives  of  its  great  men  are  told  in  irmumerable  biographies;  and 
the  science  of  geography  aided  an  understanding  of  the  sur- 
roundings in  which  the  events  narrated  took  place. 

All  this  was  done,  not  only  with  a  view  to  the  permanent 
fixing  of  historical  tradition,  but  also  with  a  taste  for  literary 
expression.  This  same  taste  is  shown  in  the  many  books 
written  by  Arabs  and  denominated  "Adab"  or  polite  litera- 
ture, in  which,  with  a  mixture  of  prose  and  poetry,  stories, 
witty  sayings,  curious  traits,  commendable  virtues,  and  rep- 
rehensible faults,  were  collected  and  illustrated,  and  in  this 
way  an  antidote  was  given  to  the  rough  and  ready  pothouse 
tales  told  by  the  professional  story-teller.  Of  these  latter, 
the  most  noted  are,  of  course,  those  comprised  within  the 
cycle  of  the  "  Thousand  Nights  and  a  Night. ' '  To  most  West- 
erners these  Boccaccian  tales  represent  the  quintessence  of 
the  ability  of  Arabic  litterateurs.  But  they  convey  a  most 
erroneous  impression  of  what  that  ability  really  was.  The 
'*  Arabian  Nights"  have  never  been  looked  upon  as  Literature 
by  the  Arabs  themselves.  They  represent  the  gossip  of  the 
club;  ribald  tales  which  one  may  tell  over  drink  or  food,  but 
which  are  not  deserving  of  a  place  by  the  side  of  the  great 
masterpieces.  They  are  not  even  a  faithful  picture  of  real 
Arab  life  as  are  the  romances  of  Antar,  of  the  Banu  Hilal,  or 
Saif  dhu  al-Yazan.  They  are  the  unhealthy  product  of  the 
close  city  life,  not  of  the  clear  air  of  the  desert ;  an  imitation 
only,  built  up  on  the  basis  of  the  Persian  ''Thousand  Days" 
and  reeking  of  the  filth  of  Bagdad  and  Cairo.  Unfortunately 
Galland  and  Lane,  Weil,  Knight,  and  Burton  have  given 


40  SEMITIC  LITERATURES 

them  a  vogue  in  the  West,  which  they  have  never  enjoyed 
in  the  East  itself. 

Unfortunately,  the  West  has  never  fully  understood  the 
East,  nor  has  it  understood  the  debt  that  it  owes  to  its  earlier 
sister.  In  the  Mediterranean  area  the  commingling  of  the 
two  has  gone  on  from  the  earliest  times.  The  deeper  becomes 
the  study  of  the  ancient  world-powers  in  Egypt,  Syria,  and 
Mesopotamia,  the  firmer  does  the  conviction  grow  that  the 
beginnings  of  our  Art,  our  Architecture,  and  our  Litera- 
ture are  to  be  found  there.  In  that  region  we  must  look  for 
the  beginnings  of  much  Greek  mythology.  Many  ideas  made 
prominent  in  Greek  philosophy  had  their  origin  in  Babylonian 
conceptions.  If  the  East  was  hellenized  under  Alexander 
the  Great  and  his  followers,  many  elements  of  culture  were 
brought  back  into  Europe.  But  the  chief  glory  of  the  Semites 
lies  in  the  fact  that  they  have  produced  two  great  books,  and 
have  given  Bibles  to  two  of  the  great  religious  factors  in  the 
development  of  the  medieval  and  modem  world.  I  have 
already  spoken  of  the  Koran.  As  a  book  of  holy  traditions 
and  religious  exhortations,  it  has  been  and  is  the  center  around 
which  nearly  three  hundred  millions  of  mankind  gather.  As 
a  masterpiece  of  the  world's  Literature,  it  has  inspired  a  large 
and  an  important  following,  and  even  we  of  to-day  can  still 
feel  the  elemental  force  of  its  power  and  the  grandeur  of  the 
simple  efforts  towards  the  divine  which  it  contains. 

What,  then,  are  we  to  say  of  our  Bible  and  of  its  influence  ? 
If  we  look  at  it  simply  from  the  religious  point  of  view,  it  is 
clear  that  this  influence  cannot  be  fully  measured.  It  has 
driven  whole  peoples  to  greatest  and  noblest  efforts.  It  has 
been  a  joy  to  those  glad  of  heart  and  a  comfort  to  them  that 
sit  in  darkness.  But  its  literary  influence  has  been  almost  as 
strong  as  has  been  its  religious  importance.  It  has  not  only 
molded  later  Hebrew  Literature  and  inspired  singers  and 
writers  in  that  ancient  tongue;  even  in  translation  its  influ- 
ence has  been  world-wide.     Modem  German  Literature  takes 


SEMITIC  LITERATURES  41 

its  rise  with  Luther's  translation.  No  man  of  Western  origin 
understood  it  better  than  did  the  great  German  reformer. 
No  one  has  reproduced  its  spirit  in  a  modern  tongue  better 
than  he  has.  And  in  our  own  Enghsh  Literature,  what  monu- 
ment has  been  of  more  lasting  endurance  than  the  noble 
version  made  by  the  divines  of  King  James  ?  How  much  of 
our  later  Literature  takes  its  inspiration  from  that  version! 
How  much  of  our  song  is  but  the  echo  of  its  sacred  pages  ? 
Were  it  only  for  this  gift  of  the  spirit  and  of  the  pen,  our 
gratitude  should  be  eternal  to  those  who  wrote  and  who 
treasured  up  these  highest  aspirations  of  the  human  soul. 


Ill 

THE   LITERATURE   OF  INDIA  AND   PERSIA 

By  A.  V.  W.  Jackson,  Professor  of  Indo-Iranian 
Languages 


When  one  has  caught  the  first  glimpses  of  the  Northern 
Indian  dawn  from  the  heights  of  the  Khaibar  Pass,  and  has 
watched  from  the  top  of  Adam's  Peak  the  splendor  of  an 
Eastern  day  sweep  out  of  the  sea  that  laves  Ceylon,  or  has  seen 
the  bright  stars  of  the  long  caravan  night  grow  pale  before  the 
gorgeous  crimson  of  the  herald  morn  in  Persia,  one  catches 
some  of  the  fire,  the  ruddy  glow,  that  belongs  to  the  Crimson 
East.  True,  this  may  not  be  conducive  to  justice  of  judg- 
ment or  accuracy  of  cold  criticism,  yet  it  inspires  one  with  an 
enthusiasm  for  those  lands  of  the  dawning  sun,  and  helps  to- 
ward a  better  understanding  and  truer  appreciation  of  the 
Literatures  of  India  and  Iran  —  a  sympathy  which  I  hope 
you  may  in  a  manner  share. 

The  history  of  these  two  cousin  realms,  India  and  Persia, 
covers  a  period  of  more  than  three  millenniums,  and  is  spread 
over  a  territory  of  many  thousand  miles.  To  crowd  such 
widespread  bounds  of  time  and  space  into  the  compass  of  less 
than  an  hour  is  a  task  indeed,  and  will  require  generous  in- 
dulgence and  leniency  on  the  part  of  the  auditor  when  making 
a  final  estimate  of  the  accomplishment. 

India  and  Persia,  each  in  its  way,  represent  the  oldest  types 
of  Aryan  civilization  and  the  most  ancient  form  of  Indo- 
European  Literature.     The  morning  stars  sang  together  when 

43 


44  THE  LITERATURE   OF   INDIA   AND   PERSIA 

poetry  was  born  in  these  distant  lands,  and  poesy's  youthful 
voice  was  first  lifted  in  a  sacred  hymn  of  praise,  alike  in  the 
region  of  the  Indus  and  the  Ganges  and  in  the  realm  of  the 
Caspian  Sea  and  the  Persian  Gulf.  The  story  of  a  religious 
beginning  is  the  same  in  both,  and  we  may  trace  the  historic 
development  of  each  in  turn. 

The  melody  of  India's  voice  broke  forth  earliest  in  a  chant. 
It  was  the  anthem  of  the  Brahman  priest  praising  the  divine 
powers  of  nature  personified  in  the  sacred  hynms  of  the  Vedas. 
The  Rig,  the  earliest  of  the  four  Vedas,  comprises  a  thousand 
hymns,  almost  every  one  of  which  is  a  religious  lyric  in  form 
and  expression.  These  hymns  are  not  mere  primitive  out- 
pourings of  the  human  soul,  as  they  were  once  thought  to  be; 
they  are  finished  poems,  carefully  wrought,  and  associated 
with  the  sacrifices  conducted  by  the  priests  of  old.  As  the 
anthem  proceeds  we  behold,  one  after  another,  the  gods  of  the 
Vedic  host  rising  before  our  visiony  It  is  now  Agni,  the  god  of 
fire,  as  the  heavenly  messenger  carrying  the  oblation  from  the 
altar  to  the  divine  beings  above.  Next,  Indra,  the  storm-god, 
marshaling  the  warring  elements  of  the  sky  against  the  demon 
of  drought  in  the  form  of  a  dragon,  whom  he  slays  with  the 
lightning,  and  thus  lets  loose  the  pent-up  rains  to  yevive  the 
parched  lands  dying  of  thirst.  Or  it  maybe  the  Sun,  the  Moon, 
or  the  Morning  and  the  Evening  Star,  that  receive  their  meed 
of  praise  and  thanksgiving.  Sometimes  the  prayer  is  for 
victory,  long  life,  children,  happiness.  Not  infrequently  the 
petition  has  some  baser  end  in  view  —  the  gaining  of  riches 
in  cattle,  or  some  minor  boon  —  vital  to  the  suppliant,  no 
doubt,  but  unworthy  in  our  eyes  to-day.  /A_  few  of  these 
hymns,  but  very  few,  and  they  are  late,  are  mere  panegyrics 
of  patrons;  and  some  are  purely  didactic.  One  entire  book, 
the  ninth,  religious  in  its  tone,  is  devoted  to  the  laudation  of 
the  soma-plant,  the  ancient  Persian  haoma,  from  which  the 
Indo-Iranians  extracted  the  sacred  drink  that  played  so  large  a 
part  in  their  sacrifices.    The  tenth,  or  last,  book  includes  a  long 


THE  LITERATURE   OF   INDIA   AND   PERSIA  45 

wedding  anthem,  several  hymns  for  the  funeral  ritual,  a  song 
of  creation,  a  cosmogonic  hymn,  and  some  poems  which  show 
the  earliest  beginnings  of  Hindu  speculative  thought  and  pos- 
sess a  loftiness  of  concept  that  commands  respect  even  from 
the  most  advanced  philosophy  to-day. 

All  the  hymns  —  suktas,  'well-spoken  compositions,'  they  are 
\called  —  are  written  in  polished  verse,  with  a  considerable 
jvariety  of  meters  and  diversity  of  style.  Some  of  them  may 
antedate  1500  b.c.  in  time  of  composition;  none  can  be  later 
than  1000  b.c.  according  to  the  opinion  of  scholars  best  compe- 
tej^  to  judge. 

'^he  noblest  of  the  early  h5Tnns  are  the  few  addressed  to 
Varuna,  a  supersensuous,  transcendental  being,  who  rules  the 
world  from  his  supernal  realm  of  heaven,  and  who  originally 
represented  the  all-embracing  sky.  Some  of  the  stanzas  that 
are  reverently  lifted  towards  the  far-distant  abode  of  this 
celestial  monarch  almost  approach  the  majesty  of  the  Psalms. 
This  is  especially  true  of  some  stanzas  in  one  of  the  hymns 
in  the  Atharva  collection,  the  fourth  of  the  Vedas,  magnifying 
the  omniscience  and  omnipresence  of  this  divine  being,  in  a 
style  not  elsewhere  matched  in  Vedic  Literature :  — 

"This  earth  is  all  King  Varuna 's  possession. 

And  yonder  lofty  sky  with  boundaries  distant, 
The  ocean's  twain  are  but  the  loins  of  Varun, 
Yet  in  the  tiniest  drop  he  lieth  hidden. 

"  What  though  one  flee  beyond  the  farthest  heaven 
One  could  not  even  there  escape  King  Varun, 
His  spies  come  hither  forth  from  out  of  heaven. 
With  all  their  thousand  eyes  the  earth  surveying. 

"  King  Varuna  discerns  all  this  that  lieth 

Between  the  firmaments  and  that  beyond  them, 
The  very  winkings  of  men's  eyes  are  numbered, 
He  reckons  all,  as  doth  the  dice  a  player." 


46  THE  LITERATURE   OF   INDIA   AND  PERSIA 

And  again  from  the  Rig:  — 

"  Whatever  be,  O  Varuna,  the  trespass 

Which  we  as  men  do  'gainst  the  race  of  heaven, 
When  heedlessly  we  violate  thy  statutes, 

Chastise  us  not,  O  God,  for  that  transgression." 

The  hymns,  however,  which  have  the  greatest  literary  inter- 
est in  the  whole  collection,  perhaps  because  they  are  richest 
in  fancy,  are  the  twenty  addressed  to  Ushas,  the  goddess  of  the 
dawn,  who  corresponds  to  the  Eos  of  the  Greeks  and  the 
Aurora  of  the  Romans.  The  sunrise  splendors  of  Northern 
Hindustan,  more  gorgeous  than  ahnost  anywhere  else  in  the 
world,  stirred  the  hearts  of  the  early  Rishis,  or  Vedic  bards, 
with  a  throb  that  burst  from  their  lips  in  lyric  song  well-nigh 
unequaled  in  the  religious  lyrics  of  any  other  people.  Ushas, 
the  damsel  fair,  born  of  the  sky,  twin  sister  of  the  night, 
flees  before  the  light  of  her  lover,  the  sun,  who  pursues  her 
across  the  heavens.  Often  she  plays  the  part  of  a  coquette 
as  she  throws  her  garb  of  darkness  aside  and  arrays  herself 
in  robes  of  splendor.  The  verse  weaves  itself  into  a  myriad 
similes  as  it  moves  along:  — 

"The  bringer  of  glad  joys  shines  out  resplendent, 
Wide  unto  us  she  throws  the  portals  open, 
Arousing  all  the  world  she  shows  us  riches ; 
The  dawn  hath  wakened  every  living  creature. 

"  This  daughter  of  the  sky  comes  on  our  vision, 
Refulgent  maiden  clad  in  shining  raiment, 
Princess  of  all  the  earth's  goodly  possessions, 
O  Dawn  auspicious,  shine  thou  to-day  upon  us." 

And  yet,  amid  all  this  brilliancy  and  splendor,  a  somber  tone, 
a  note  of  sadness  comes  in,  the  mingling  of  the  vox  humana 
with  the  vox  seraphica  in  the  lyric  cry :  — 


THE  LITERATURE   OF   INDIA  AND  PERSIA  47 

"Gone  and  departed  now  are  all  those  mortals 
Who  looked  of  old  upon  the  Dawn  so  radiant ; 
To-day  she  is  beheld  by  us  now  living  — 
But  those  are  coming  who  will  see  her  later." 

/  It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  the  sentimental  note 
is  a  dominant  one  in  the  flig-Veda.  A  soimd  and  wholesome 
tone  pervades  the  entire  collection;  and  occasionally  this  takes 
the  form  of  gentle  humor  or  mild  sarcasm,  good-natured  satire 
or  didactic  ridicule)>  Thus,  in  one  instance,  the  bard  intimates 
that  whatever  be  the  calling  or  station  in  life,  whether  priest, 
doctor,  carpenter,  or  what-not,  all  men  are  after  money; 
it  is  the  same  everywhere;  and  he  concludes  his  jingle  in  a 
light-hearted  vein  that  is  quite  modem :  — 

"Poet  am  I ;   Papa's  a  quack, 
Mama  the  upper  millstone  turns ; 
Whate'er  our  aims  —  like  chasing  cows  — 
We  all  are  hunting  after  wealth." 

Quite  up-to-date  for  three  thousand  years  ago! 

The  swift  march  of  time  does  not  allow  me  to  attempt  a 
characterization  of  the  other  three  Vedas.  Ab  uno  disce  omnes. 
But  were  I  to  do  so,  I  should  not  claim  them  as  rivals  for  the 
Rig  in  literary  excellence. 

Still  less  could  I  make  plea  for  that  body  of  explanatory 
works  known  as  Brahmanas,  which  were  composed  after  the 
era  of  early  Vedic  creation  had  ceased,  and  which  seem  to  eluci- 
date the  hymns  by  legendary  and  traditional  matter.  Even 
less  strong  would  be  my  appeal  in  the  case  of  those  strings  of 
rules  called  Sutras,  ''  Threads,"  that  were  twined  about  the 
ritual  which  had  now  grown  up  around  both  Vedas  and  Brah- 
manas. These  Sutras  and  Brahmanas  served,  it  is  thought, 
to  carry  the  Vedic  age  forward  for  five  or  six  hundred  years, 
so  that  they  cover  a  period  ranging  presumably  from  1000 
to  400  B.C.     Neither  of  them,  however,  can  make  any  pre- 


48  THE   LITERATURE   OF   INDIA   AND  PERSIA 

tense  to  literary  qualities.  The  Brahmana  writings  are  usu- 
ally spoken  of  as  stupid,  silly,  inane.  The  crabbed  Sutras, 
mere  formulas  to  give  the  rules  for  the  ancient  rites  and  ob- 
servances, have  about  the  same  artistic  value  as  an  algebraic 
formula.  Nevertheless,  they  both  have  one  special  interest; 
they  are  both  written  in  prose  and  thus  furnish,  so  far  as  the 
Brahmanas  go,  the  earliest  examples  of  prose  literature  that 
exist  in  any  Indo-European  Literature.  The  short,  choppy 
sentences  of  their  childish  babble  are  crude  enough,  it  must  be 
confessed,  and  yet  they  are  often  full  of  fancy.  Here  is  one,  the 
"Legend  of  the  Origin  of  Night  and  Day"  in  the  time  of  primi- 
tive man,  when  Yama  and  his  sister  Yami  were  the  first  beings 
on  earth.  I  translate  the  brief  narrative  nearly  literally,  so  as 
to  preserve  the  abrupt  sentences  of  the  crude  style;  it  is 
rough  enough,  but  all  the  imaginative  element  is  there  ! 

"  Now  Yama  died.  The  gods  sought  to  comfort  Yami.  When 
they  asked  her  she  responded:  'It  was  to-day  he  died.'  The  gods 
then  said, '  Verily  if  this  goes  on  she  will  never  forget  him.'  Now  up 
to  that  time  there  had  been  day  only,  not  night.  The  gods  created 
night.  Then  came  the  morrow.  Then  she  began  to  forget  him. 
Hence  they  say :  '  'Tis  days  and  nights  make  us  forget  our  sorrow." 

The  fact  that  the  beginnings  of  Hindu  philosophy  are  to  be 
sought  in  the  Veda  has  already  been  intimated;  the  fact 
also  that  philosophy  can  be  treated  poetically  (Pope  tried  it 
in  his  "  Essay  on  Man  ")  is  proved  by  the  Sanskrit  Upanishads,  ^ 
the  oldest  philosophical  treatises,  as  a  whole,  in  Indian  Litera- 
ture. Numbering  some  two  hundred,  these  speculative  writ- 
ings cover  a  long  period  of  time,  running  back  to  the  sixth 
century  b.c.  or  earlier,  although  the  latest  of  them,  mere 
sectarian  tracts  written  even  after  the  Mohammedan  conquest 
of  India,  may  come  down  as  late  as  1000  a.d.  The  oldest  of 
these  documents  best  illustrate  the  early  stages  of  pantheistic 
speculation  which  subsequently  developed  into  the  six  recog- 
nized systems  of  Hindu  philosophy.     In  matter  of  style  the 


THE  LITERATURE  OF   INDIA  AND  PERSIA  49 

Upanishads  are  principally  composed  in  verse,  but  some  are 
in  prose  or  contain  prose.  Yet,  just  as  Plato's  prose  is  the 
prose  of  a  poet-philosopher,  so  they  rise  at  times  fully  to  the 
standard  of  recognized  Literature,  especially  in  their  visual- 
ized images  of  the  individual  soul  merging  into  the  All-Soul 
which  gave  it  birth,  or  when  the  phantasmagoria  of  the  world 
sink  into  the  real  background  of  non-phenomenal  existence, 
and  the  fitful  dream  of  unreality  gives  place  to  the  dreamless 
sleep  of  the  real.  To  indicate  what  influence  these  philosophic 
productions  have  had  upon  the  Occident  I  need  only  refer  to 
Schopenhauer,  who  found  the  Upanishads  his  solace  in  life 
and  his  consolation  in  death,  or  allude  to  the  writings  of  our 
own  Emerson. 

The  calm  and  serene  speculation  of  the  Upanishads  gives 
place  to  the  stirring  action  of  the  two  great  epic  poems  of 
India,  the  "  Mahabharata  "  and  the  "Ramayana." 

The  "Mahabharata,"  sometimes  called  the  "  Iliad  of  India," 
is  an  epic  tale  of  the  great  war  between  two  rival  and  related 
families,  which  brought  the  whole  of  Aryan  India  into  a  fatal 
feud.  In  compass  the  monstrous  poem  is  nearly  eight  times 
as  large  as  the  "Iliad"  and  "Odyssey"  taken  together,  since 
it  contains  two  hundred  thousand  verses.  The  noble  Arj  una, 
a  perfect  type  of  knighthood,  is  its  Achilles;  the  god-born 
Kama  is  its  Hector ;  and  the  martial  Yudhishthira,  leader  of  the 
hosts,  its  Agamemnon.  Yet  there  the  likeness  between  the 
huge  epic  and  the  Grecian  masterpiece  practically  ends. 

Notwithstanding  its  unwieldy  length  the  "Mahabharata" 
has  the  quality  of  a  true  national  epic.  Its  stirring  scenes, 
its  deeds  of  heroism  and  valor  in  the  fateful  battle  of  eighteen 
days  that  forms  the  crisis  of  the  epic,  its  situations  full  of  chiv- 
alry and  courage,  and  its  episodes  full  of  love,  tenderness,  and 
devotion,  of  pathos  and  despair,  are  literary  masterpieces 
when  taken  by  themselves,  and  show  the  human  heart  stirred 
to  the  bottom.  Some  of  the  scenes,  like  those  following  the 
night  of  slaughter,  with  the  lamentation  of  the  women  over  the 


50  THE   LITERATURE   OF   INDIA   AND  PERSIA 

dead,  and  the  spectral  images  that  rise  before  the  view,  would 
require  strains  inexpressibly  grand  —  the  genius  of  a  Wagner 
—  to  give  them  a  tone  if  set  to  music ;  and  the  final  apotheosis 
of  the  heroic  figures  of  the  poem,  as  they  ascend  to  heaven, 
forms  a  fitting  close  to  this  noble  epic,  voluminous  and  vast. 
The  fault  of  the  work,  in  Western  eyes,  is  its  enormous  length; 
the  Mr]8ev  ayav  of  the  Greeks  was  not  known  to  the  Indian 
redactors,  or  final  redactor,  who  wove  those  ancient  Hindu 
rhapsodies  of  the  past  into  a  giant  national  poem,  and  brought 
the  national  epic  into  its  present  form. 

The  other  epic,  the  "Ramayana,"  or  wanderings  of  the 
hero  Rama,  is  a  more  artificial  epic  as  opposed  to  the  folk-epic 
of  India,  and  represents  the  true  type  of  a  long  romantic  poem. 
Unlike  the  "  Mahabharata, "  which  grew  out  of  old  rhapsodies, 
the  "Ramayana"  is  largely  the  work  of  a  single  author,  Val- 
miki,  who  blazed  out  the  path  for  many  of  the  artistic  devices 
that  became  standards  in  later  Indian  Literature,  and  whom  we 
can,  perhaps,  date  about  500  b.c.  The  wanderings  of  the  hero 
Rama,  cheated  of  his  throne  and  banished  with  his  faithful 
wife  Sita,  form  the  theme  of  the  epic.  The  romance  and  pathos 
deepen  when  the  devoted  Sita  is  forcibly  carried  away  by  a 
demon-king  to  the  uttermost  bounds  of  Ceylon  in  the  south. 
Then  comes  the  adventurous  element,  when  the  monkeys  of 
Southern  India,  the  aboriginal  population  in  the  guise  of 
monkeys,  join  hands  with  the  distracted  hero  in  the  war  to  re- 
cover his  wife.  Virtue  and  right  triumph  at  last,  and  Sita 
is  ultimately  restored  to  her  lord. 

From  its  plot  the  "Ramayana"  is  sometimes  called  the 
"Odyssey  of  India,"  but  the  parallel  is  only  a  distant  one; 
closer  analogies  in  some  of  its  parts  might  perhaps  be  found 
in  legends  connected  with  King  Arthur,  like  whom  Rama 
stands  as  a  hero  sans  peur  et  sans  reproche.  Judged  from  a 
literary  standpoint,  the  poem  suffers,  like  its  companion-piece, 
from  its  great  length,  nearly  fifty  thousand  verses.  It  has, 
however,  marked  literary  merit,  and  many  of  its  episodes  and 


THE   LITERATURE  OF   INDIA   AND  PERSIA  51 

descriptions  are  full  of  beauty.  The  poem  fulfils  yet  another 
mission,  it  is  a  great  moral  teacher  for  the  youth  of  India,  in 
whose  eyes  Rama  is  the  prince  ideal  and  his  beloved  Sita  the 
nonpareil  of  wifely  devotion. 

At  the  very  time  when  the  orthodox  Brahmanical  Literature 
was  being  developed  in  the  Sanskrit  epics,  a  dialectic  Litera- 
ture in  Pali,  the  sacred  language  of  the  Buddhists,  was  taking 
shape  and  entering  upon  that  long  literary  life  which  was  to 
extend  from  the  sixth  century  B.C.  to  the  seventh  century  a.d. 
To  speak  critically,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  most  of  the 
productions  of  this  quasi-Indian  Protestantism  are  not  Litera- 
ture, judged  from  the  esthetic  standpoint,  forbidding  as  they 
are  by  their  schematic  formalism,  their  endless  repetitions, 
and  their  didactic  tone.  Nevertheless,  it  must  in  fairness  be 
emphasized  that  such  a  work  as  the  ''Dhammapada/'  a  book 
of  moral  maxims  and  sententious  virtue,  —  if  virtue  can  be 
reduced  to  aphorisms,  —  presents  its  religious  teaching  with 
rare  strength  and  beauty.  The  Pali  ''Jatakas,"  moreover, 
or  stories  of  Buddha's  successive  births,  contain  an  immensely 
interesting  mass  of  folklore  in  their  entertaining  accounts  of 
Buddha's  earlier  incarnations  in  both  human  and  animal  form; 
and  in  them  we  have  the  beginning  of  the  beast  fable  for  which 
India  is  renowned. 

It  was  out  of  the  Sanskrit  animal  fables  that  a  new  branch 
of  Literature  was  actually  developed  in  Europe,  as  represented 
earliest  by  the  works  of  ^Esop  and  Babrius,  though  some  au- 
thorities still  refuse  assent  to  this  view.  Story-telling  under 
the  guise  of  animal  tales  was  admirably  developed  among  the 
Hindus  from  the  earliest  times.  The  five  books  of  the  San- 
skrit "Pancatantra,"  and  its  successor,  the  "Hitopades'a," 
or  "Book  of  Good  Counsel,"  if  we  translate  its  title,  stand  as 
the  culmination  of  this  style  of  fiction.  The  student  of  com- 
parative literature  knows  that  the  fascinating  collection  of 
apologues  in  the  Pancatantra  was  translated  into  Pahlavi, 
the  Persian  of  the  sixth  century  of  our  era  and  thence  into  Syr- 


52  THE  LITERATURE   OF   INDIA  AND   PERSIA 

iac,  in  the  same  century,  and  into  Arabic  in  the  eighth.  From 
this  latter  version  later  renderings  were  made  and  found  their 
way  into  Europe.  There  was  a  Greek  translation  in  the 
twelfth  century,  a  Hebrew  and  a  Latin  version  in  the  thirteenth, 
and  finally  a  German  translation  of  the  latter  in  the  fifteenth, 
century,  which  ultimately  passed  into  the  French  of  La 
Fontaine.  The  narrative  of  the  development  is  briefly  told  by  a 
mere  mention  of  the  names,  "KaUlahand  Dimnah,"  "Bidpah 
or  Pilpay,"  the  "Directorium  Humanas  Vitse,"  and  "Das 
Buch  der  Byspel  der  alten  Wysen."  Scores  of  illustrations 
stand  ready  at  hand  to  show  this  evolution.  I  need  only  re- 
call to  your  mind  the  story  of  the  girl  who  counted  her  chickens 
before  they  were  hatched,  or  the  milkmaid  who  built  castles 
in  the  air  before  her  milk  reached  market,  or  the  Brahman 
who  married  a  wife  in  fancy  before  the  rice  in  his  bowl 
found  a  purchaser.     Let  me  summarize  this  latter  one. 

There  the  Brahman  sat  with  the  bowl  of  rice  before  him, 
and  he  looked  at  it  and  thought  what  fine  rice  it  was,  and  how 
he  should  charge  a  good  price  for  it.  And  then  he  began  to 
plan  what  he  would  do  with  his  money.  He  decided  in  his 
mind  that  he  would  marry,  that  he  would  even  have  four  wives, 
and  that  the  youngest  and  prettiest  of  them  he  would  love  the 
best.  And  he  dreamed  on  and  on,  and  thought  that  perhaps 
one  of  the  other  wives  might  make  him  angry,  and  that  if  he 
got  angry  he  would  kick  her,  and  he  kicked  out,  and  over  went 
his  bowl  of  rice. 

This  is  but  a  single  instan,ce  of  scores  of  these  long  literary 
wanderings. 

The  next  development  of  importance  in  Sanskrit  Literature 
is  one  upon  which  I  would  lay  especial  stress.  I  refer  to  the 
Indian  drama.  This  is  considered  by  most  scholars  to  be 
independent  of  outside  influence,  for  the  theory  that  the  Greek 
stage  influenced  the  classic  drama  of  India  is  now  reduced  to  a 
minimum.  India  possesses  a  rich  dramatic  literature  which 
deserves  far  more  attention  than  it  has  yet  received  from 


THE   LITERATURE   OF   INDIA   AND  PERSIA  53 

the  student  of  the  history  of  the  player's  art.  The  biblio- 
graphical lists  of  Indian  dramas  show  titles  of  not  less  than 
five  hundred  plays,  a  number  that  compares  favorably  with 
the  histrionic  output  of  the  English  Elizabethan  and  Restora- 
tion periods.  Some  of  these  compositions  in  prose  and  verse 
presented  before  kings,  as  they  were  described  by  some  of  the 
native  scholars,  may  date  back  fifteen  centuries  or  more, 
and  the  movement  reached  its  zenith  when  the  Roman  drama 
had  died  out  and  before  the  rise  of  the  drama  in  Europe,  still 
sunk  in  the  Dark  Ages,  had  yet  begun.  The  Sanskrit  drama 
throughout  is  the  romantic  drama,  the  drama  of  Shakspere's 
latter  days,  and  not  the  classic  drama  of  the  Greeks.  There 
is,  in  fact,  no  tragedy,  for  though  there  is  sometimes  a  very 
close  approach  to  it,  a  happy  solution  must  always  be  found. 

In  the  long  line  of  Sanskrit  dramatists  the  best  known  name, 
familiar  to  many  of  you  already,  is  Kalidasa,  the  Hindu  Shak- 
spere,  as  he  is  sometimes  called,  whose  date  cannot  be  placed 
later  than  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century  a.d.,  and  who 
may  have  flourished  earlier.  His  "S'akuntala,"  when  it  was 
translated  by  Sir  William  Jones  more  than  a  century  ago, 
gained  the  enthusiastic  praise  of  Goethe  and  evoked  the  ad- 
miration of  Schiller,  as  it  has  won  the  appreciation  of  lovers  of 
good  literature  ever  since.  This  will  always  be  so,  and  Kali- 
dasa's  grasp  of  the  dramatic  conception,  his  skill  in  portraying 
characters,  his  deft  handling  of  incident  and  situation,  his 
delicacy  and  refinement  of  feeling,  together  with  the  beauty 
of  his  language  and  style,  will  be  admired  as  long  as  Uterary 
taste  exists. 

If  there  were  time,  I  should  like  to  sketch  some  of  the 
scenes  in  one  or  other  of  his  three  plays,  to  set  forth  in  Kali- 
dasa's  own  words  the  story  of  S'akuntala's  love,  to  picture  her 
dismay  when  the  enchanted  ring  which  binds  her  to  her  royal 
lover  is  lost,  their  pathetic  separation,  and  the  almost  Shak- 
sperian  scene  where  the  fisherman  who  has  found  it  is  haled  into 
court,  and  to  tell  you  how,  after  the  long  and  painful  separation, 


54  THE   LITERATURE   OF   INDIA   AND  PERSIA 

the  loving  oouple  are  united  in  the  embrace  of  their  princely 
son :  but  that  would  carry  us  too  far  afield. 
/  Should  we  seek  to  parallel  Shakspere,  there  is  a  still  earlier 
drama,  the  "Clay  _Cart,"  attributed  to  King  S'udraka,  which 
combines  all  the  elements  of  an  Elizabethan  play,  even  to 
comphcations  through  mistaken  identity,  disguise,  the  use  of 
stage  properties,  the  introduction  of  a  gambling  episode  and  a 
political  sub-plot,  together  with  a  supposed  murder  and  a  trial 
for  life  on  the  ground  of  circumstantial  evidence,  only  to  reach 
a  happy  solution,  in  conformity  with  the  laws  of  Hindu 
dramaturgy,  when  the  reformed  gambler  who  has  gone  into  a 
monastery  comes  into  court  and  tells  his  tale.  I  might  cite  the 
names  of  a  dozen  gifted  playwrights  in  early  India.  The  list 
would  include  King  Harsha,  a  literary  patron  and  himself  an 
author  of  other  plays  in  the  seventh  century,  and  it  would  also 
contain  an  indirect  parallel  to  Romeo  and  Juliet  by  Bhava- 
bhuti  in  the  eighth  century  and  a  clever  drama  of  Machiavel- 
lian policy,  a  sort  of  Indian  dramatic  "Richeheu"  by  Vi- 
s'akhadatta  a  century  later;  nor  should  I  forget  the  admirably 
constructed  drama  of  the  "Curse  of  the  Angry  Priest"  by 
Kshemis'vara,  who  wrote  in  the  tenth  century  a  play  on  the 
sufferings  of  a  good  king,  which  has  all  the  dramatic  quahties 
of  the  story  of  Job.  Dozens  of  parallels  might  likewise  be 
drawn  with  the  West  in  regard  to  scenic  structure,  style,  action, 
the  use  of  dialect  characters,  inanimate  objects,  letters,  pic- 
tures, and  rings,  as  a  means  to  complicate  the  story,  or  the 
introduction  of  pathos  and  despair,  fun,  humor,  and  surprise, 
or  even  the  supernatural,  to  bring  about  the  desired  result. 
They  all  seem  quite  modern,  although  anticipating  Shakspere 
by  a  thousand  or  fifteen  hundred  years. 
//  But  I  must  pass  into  that  realm  of  lyric  poetry  which  lies 
so  close  to  the  dramatic.  India  possesses  a  number  of  poems 
that  are  worthy  to  rank  as  masterpieces  in  the  world's  best 
Literature.  From  the  earliest  times  the  Hindu  has  turned  to 
lyric  strains;  the  vlnd,  or  lute,  was  in  high  favor.      Even  the 


THE  LITERATURE   OF   INDIA  AND  PERSIA  55 

hymns  chanted  by  the  Vedic  bards  of  old,  may  be  regarded  as 
odes  or  rhapsodies.  The  great  Sanskrit  epics  occasionally 
contain  lyric  passages,  and  the  Sanskrit  drama  shows  the  use 
of  the  lyric  in  its  perfection.  Kalidasa  has  outbursts  of 
poetic  passion  in  his  plays  that  rival  anything  in  Literature. 
Sanskrit  Literature  includes  long  lyric  poems  as  well  as 
short,  and  among  India's  authors  of  this  type  Kalidasa  again 
is  peer,  his  passion  rivaling  anything  in  the  world's  lyric 
Literature.  Like  his  contemporaries,  he  is  the  child  of  an 
Indian  renaissance,  if  we  understand  that  term  broadly 
enough,  a  kind  of  Sanskrit  Marlowe,  with  all  the  richness  and 
exuberance,  the  fancy  and  imagination,  that  mark  the  true 
poet.  One  of  his  poems,  "The  Seasons,"  may  be  compared 
with  Thomson's  masterpiece,  and  the  "Cloud  Messenger," 
or  lover's  greeting  intrusted  to  a  cloud  about  to  float  away 
to  the  beloved,  is  as  delicate  as  a  poem  of  Shelley,  and  caught 
the  fancy  of  Schiller.  Not  to  mention  other  minstrels,  the 
lyric  measures  of  Jayadeva,  who  wrote  as  late  as  the  twelfth 
century,  may  be  paralleled  with  the  fire  and  passion  of  Shak- 
spere's  "Venus  and  Adonis." 

Some  of  the  Sanskrit  lyrics  are  gems  of  poetic  composition, 
polished  to  an  exquisite  finish  of  refined  workmanship.  Those 
attributed  to  Bhartrihari  injthe  siij:th-  century,  for  example, 
would  well  illustrate  the  point.  Here  is  one,  for  instance, 
that  may  be  called  "Cupid's  Whirligig,"  showing  that  the 
course  of  true  love  did  not  always  run  smoothly,  even  in 
ancient  India.  It  is  the  old  case  of  the  beloved  not  recipro- 
cating:— 

"She  whom  I  dote  on  constantly 

Coldly  my  wooing  spurns  : 
Her  heart  pines  for  another  man, 

His  for  another  burns  ; 
And  yet  that  certain  other  maid 

Madly  for  me  doth  languish  ; 
Fie  upon  her,  him,  her  and  me, 

And  Cupid,  cause  of  anguish." 


56  THE   LITERATURE   OF   INDIA   AND   PERSIA 

Another,  which  Heine  would  have  Uked,  runs  thus: — 

"Thy  face,  a  lovely  lily; 
Thine  eyes,  the  lotus  blue ; 
Thy  teeth  are  jasmine  blossoms, 
Thy  lips  the  rosebud's  hue, 
The  velvet  touch  of  the  champak 
Thy  tender  skin  doth  own ; 
How  comes  it  the  Creator 
Hath  made  thy  heart  a  stone?  " 

And  here  is  still  another,  which  one  of  my  pupils  has  versified: 

"  In  the  heart  of  the  sage  there  burneth  a  lamp 
Clear  shining  by  night  and  by  day 
With  a  flame  so  pure  that  he  boasteth  sure 
There's  naught  its  beams  can  stay. 

"  But  a  fawn-eyed  maid  comes  gliding  by, 
And  giveth  one  glance  so  bright. 
That  his  flame  once  pure  is  all  obscure 
Through  Love's  more  radiant  light." 

In  another  quatrain,  which  I  may  call "  Cupid's  Fishing  Pond," 
the  god  of  love  baits  his  hook  with  a  fair  maid;  and  in  still 
another  we  have  an  early  parallel  to  Shakspere's  "All  the 
world's  a  stage";  while  in  many  a  one  a  sly  touch  of  humor 
is  found.  Sometimes  it  may  be  only  four  lines,  —  the  old 
story  of  the  boy,  the  stone,  and  the  dog :  — 

"A  dog  in  sight?  —  there's  never  a  stone  to  throw ! 
A  stone  at  hand  ?  —  no  dog  to  hit,  I  trow ! 
Both  dog  and  stone  at  the  same  time  in  view  ? 
'Tis  the  King's  dog !  pshaw  !  what  am  I  to  do  ?  " 

Prose  fiction  is  capitally  represented  by  Dandin  in  the 
sixth  century,  whose  "Adventures  of  the  Ten  Princes"  is  an 
admirable  example  of  the  tale  of  roguery  and  picaresque 
novel,  and  there  are  excellent  examples  of  story-telling  in 
versified  form  to  be  found  in  the  rich  collection  of  the  Katha- 


THE   LITERATURE   OF  INDIA   AND   PERSIA  57 

Sarit  Sagara,  or  "Ocean  of  the  Streams  of  Story."  The 
romantic  tale  in  the  form  of  artistic  language  at  least  reached 
its  height  in  some  of  the  court  authors  of  the  sixth  or  seventh 
century,  whose  Kavya  style,  or  courtly  composition,  out- 
Lylied  Lyly  and  out-Guevaraed  Guevara  in  conceits,  puns, 
double-meanings,  and  other  fanciful  devices  almost  beyond 
our  comprehension  and  certainly  beyond  our  taste. 

If  there  were  time,  I  might  say  much  about  the  other 
branches  of  Literature,  like  the  codes  of  law  and  traditional 
wisdom  in  verse,  such  as  the  great  collection  that  bears  the 
name  of  Manu,  the  Solon  and  Lycurgus  of  Indian  legislation. 
Or  I  might  touch  upon  poetic  treatises  dealing  with  astronomy, 
mathematics,  medicine,  and  their  kin;  but  they  would  be 
largely  technical  in  character  and  not  belong  strictly  to  belles- 
lettres.  The  only  great  literary  domain  which  I  can  think  of 
at  the  moment  as  not  represented  is  history.  India  is  of  all 
nations  the  least  historically  inclined;  her  religion  and  phil- 
osophy made  her  so.  There  is  no  Hindu  Herodotus,  Thu- 
cydides,  Livy,  or  Tacitus;  what  history  there  is,  is  largely 
confined  to  legends,  romantic  tales,  and  the  records  on  in- 
scriptions and  coins. 

As  for  India's  modern  Literature,  I  may  say  that  the  lyric, 
epic,  and  the  dramatic  have  been  fostered  and  are  still  cul- 
tivated to-day,  both  in  Sanskrit  and  in  the  native  vernaculars, 
for  Literature  is  not  a  lost  art  among  the  Hindus.  If  called 
upon  to  summarize  my  views,  I  should  say  that  Sanskrit 
Literature,  through  its  long  line  of  historic  development,  may 
claim  from  the  student  of  comparative  Literature  the  same 
attention  that  the  Sanskrit  language  exacts  from  the  student 
of  comparative  philology. 

II 

The  ever  hurrying  beat  of  time's  footfall  warns  me  that  the 
minutes  are  speeding  on.    And  what  shall  I  say  of  Persia  — 


58  THE  LITERATURE   OF   INDIA   AND   PERSIA 

that  other  land  of  sunrise  and  dawn,  whose  Literature,  though 
far  less  extensive  than  that  of  India,  has  nevertheless  exer- 
cised a  potent  influence  upon  the  world's  Literature  and  the 
world's  thought. 

In  Iran,  as  in  Hindustan,  and  as  in  Israel  of  old,  the  first 
echo  of  poetry  awoke  in  a  prophet's  song.  This  time  it  was 
the  voice  of  Zarathushtra,  the  great  religious  teacher  of  Persia, 
in  the  seventh  century  B.C.,  chanting  in  fervid  tones  an  an- 
them of  divine  praise.  His  cry  broke  the  silence  of  the  night 
perchance  in  some  mountain  cavern  in  northwestern  Iran,  or 
heralded  the  morn  as  he  wandered  priestlike  throughout 
the  borders  of  Persia,  preaching  the  story  of  his  communion 
with  Ormazd,  the  god,  and  the  archangels.  It  is  now  a  vision 
of  heaven  and  the  future,  next  an  appeal  to  mankind  to  repent, 
to  abandon  the  way  of  the  wicked,  and  follow  the  path  of 
righteousness.  For  a  moment  there  may  be  a  note  of  de- 
spondency in  the  tone,  since  deaf  ears  hearken  not  unto  his 
word;  but  comfort  is  always  in  God  and  the  marvelous 
works  of  creation,  so  the  impassioned  question  rises  to  the 
prophet's  lips:  — 

"This  I  ask  thee  —  tell  me  true,  O  Lord  !  — 
Who  in  the  beginning  by  his  generation  was  the  father  of  Righteous- 
ness? 
Who  established  the  path  of  the  sun  and  the  stars  ? 
Who  is  it,  through  whom  the  moon  waxes  and  wanes  ?  — 
This  and  yet  more,  O  Mazdah,  I  desire  to  know. 

"This  I  ask  thee  —  tell  me  true,  O  Lord  !  — 
Who  hath  made  firm  the  earth  below  and  the  sky 
So  that  it  falleth  not?     Who,  the  waters  and  the  plants? 
Who  hath  yoked  swiftness  to  the  winds  and  the  clouds  ? 
Who  is  the  creator,  O  Mazdah,  of  (the  archangel)  Good  Thought  ?'* 

His  own  soul  loiows  the  answer,  since  Ahura  Mazdah  and  the 
celestial  hierarchy  form  ever  the  theme  of  Zoroaster's  psalms. 
These  psalms  —  Gathas,  "hynms,  anthems,"  they  are  called 


THE  LITERATURE   OF   INDIA   AND  PERSIA  59 

—  give  the  outpourings  of  the  seer's  heart  in  rhythmic  stanzas 
that  resemble  in  meter  the  verses  of  the  Vedic  bards,  though 
somewhat  lat.er  in  time  of  composition. 

Later  than  the  Gathas  in  form  and  structure,  but  inspired 
by  Zoroaster,  though  doubtless  the  work  of  various  hands, 
are  the  Avestan  Yashts,  "praises."  In  matter  of  content, 
however,  some  of  their  myths  and  legends  may  go  back  as 
far  as  the  Vedic  age,  or  even  to  the  primitive  period  of  Indo- 
Iranian  unity,  when  the  ancestors  of  the  Persians  and  the 
Hindus  still  formed  an  undivided  community,  a  single  branch 
of  the  Indo-European  stock.  The  majority  of  the  Yashts 
are  composed  in  meter,  and  their  measured  stanzas  glorify 
the  various  divine  personifications  or  the  demigods  and  heroes 
of  the  faith.  Sometimes  they  rise  to  the  height  of  real  poetry, 
as  in  the  description  of  Mithra,  the  angel  of  truth  and  celestial 
embodiment  of  the  sun's  light,  as  he  rides  forth  majestic  in 
his  chariot  across  the  heavens,  guiding  and  watching  over 
men,  even  in  the  battle  which  his  mighty  power  sets  a-going, 
or  sternly  punishing  the  sinner  that  breaks  his  word  and 
pledge.  All  this  is  portrayed  in  the  tenth  Yasht,  a  composi- 
tion devoted  to  extolling  Mithra's  grandeur,  which  is  next 
only  to  that  of  Ormazd.  As  for  some  of  the  other  parts  of 
the  Avesta,  I  confess  that  they  are  rather  prosaic,  although 
always  imbued  with  a  deep  religious  feehng  which  commands 
respect. 

The  aftermath  that  sprang  up  when  the  Avestan  harvest 
had  been  reaped,  grew  in  the  field  of  Pahlavi  Literature  during 
the  Sassanian  period  of  Christian  times;  but  it  yields  little 
to  the  sickle  of  the  gleaner.  In  character,  for  the  most  part, 
it  is  supplemental  to  the  Avesta,  and  bears  much  the  same 
relation  to  that  earlier  monument  as  the  Patristic  writings 
do  to  our  own  Bible,  or  the  Talmudic  Literature  bears  to  the 
Old  Testament.  Among  its  products,  however,  we  occa- 
sionally gather  a  few  good  sheaves.  There  are  compositions, 
for  instance,  of  a  secular  type,  like  the  "Romance  of  King 


60  THE  LITERATURE   OF   INDIA  AND  PERSIA 

Ardashir,"  a  narrative  of  the  king's  love  for  a  fair  princess, 
his  valor  in  slaying  a  dragon,  and  accomplishing  other  deeds 
of  prowess;  and  this  one  in  particular  has  the  quality  of 
imagination  and  deserves  consideration  as  showing  the  begin- 
nings of  story-telling.  There  are  likewise  Pahlavi  works  that 
contain  philosophic  discussions  or  kindred  matter,  based  on 
beliefs  current  in  the  earliest  days.  There  is  even  something 
as  practical  and  commonplace  as  a  treatise  on  the  game  of 
chess  !  But,  taken  as  a  whole,  Pahlavi  Literature  is  prosaic 
in  content  as  it  is  in  form,  and  whatever  may  be  its  secular 
or  religious  worth,  I  think  we  are  justified  in  withholding 
from  it  the  title  of  literary  merit. 

Far  different  is  the  case  with  Modern  Persian  Literature, 
which  followed  in  the  wake  of  Pahlavi  Literature,  overtaking 
its  slow  course  with  rapid  sweep,  as  early  as  the  ninth  or 
tenth  century  a.d.  Several  distinct  waves  mark  the  begin- 
ning of  this  new  literary  era.  Paramount  among  them  was 
that  of  epic  poetry,  which  broke  into  a  crest  nearly  a  thou- 
sand years  ago. 

The  great  name  in  Persian  epic  poetry  is  that  of  Firdausi 
(935-1020)  who  devoted  his  life  to  singing  of  the  past  glories 
of  Iran.  His  masterpiece,  the  "Shah  Namah,"  or  ''Book  of 
Kings,"  is  a  personal  epic  in  the  sense  that  it  is  the  work  of  a 
single  rhapsodist,  but  it  is  a  national  epic  because  pulsing 
with  the, heartbeat  of  a  people.  Firdausi's  trumpet  tones  ring 
and  re-ring  with  the  note  of  the  old-time  pride  of  Iran,  echoing 
in  clarion  blasts  the  story  of  her  ancient  kings  in  their  long 
line  of  sovereignty,  the  valor  of  her  heroes,  and  the  stubborn 
baseness  of  her  inveterate  foes.  At  times  the  kindled  flame 
burns  high  on  the  heights  of  epic  grandeur,  illuminating  the 
long  poem  with  the  fire  of  inspiration,  so  that  its  huge  mass 
of  sixty  thousand  verses  is  aglow,  and  warms  the  reader's 
heart.  The  fact  that  Matthew  Arnold  has  given  one  of  the 
episodes  of  the  "Shah  Namah"  an  enduring  form  in  English 
verse  through  his  free  adaptation  of  the  tragic  story  of  "Sohrab 


THE  LITERATURE   OF   INDIA  AND  PERSIA  61 

and  Rustum"  is  among  the  proofs  that  the  heroic  poem  is 
entitled  to  a  place  in  the  circle  of  epic  masterpieces.  I  wish 
there  were  time  to  compare  for  you  Firdausi's  original  rhap- 
sody with  Arnold's  spirited  refitting  of  this  story  of  the  fatal 
combat  between  father  and  son,  but  I  must  hasten  forward  to 
mention  another  genre  in  Persian  Literature,  the  poetry  of 
adventure  portrayed  in  the  romantic  epopee. 

Nizami,  in  the  twelfth  century,  is  the  acknowledged  chief- 
tain in  the  realm  of  the  rhymed  romance.  Love,  heroism, 
and  adventure  formed  the  burden  of  his  song  as  he  tuned  his 
lay  at  the  same  moment  when  the  trouveres  and  minnesingers 
in  the  West  were  chanting  their  chansons  in  the  very  heyday 
of  chivalry.  He  is  their  peer,  and  in  his  romantic  story  of 
"  Khusrau  and  Shirin"  I  am  not  sure  that  he  did  not  outdo  his 
unknowing  European  rivals. 

One  cannot  lecture  on  Persian  Literature  without  ringing 
changes  on  the  major  key  of  mysticism,  because  the  Sufi  note 
of  veiled  allegory  and  masked  symbolism  is  a  dominant  chord 
in  much  of  its  verse.  To  appreciate  the  spirit  of  Persian 
poesy's  very  being,  one  must  understand  the  fundamental 
elements  of  its  harmony,  its  emblematic  nature,  the  delicate 
interchange  of  sign  and  thing  signified,  subtle  play  of  disguised 
meanings,  esoteric  allusions,  phraseology  with  hidden  im- 
plications that  were  understood  of  the  elect,  and  all  the  refined 
spiritualization  of  physical  and  material  images,  pseudo- 
erotic  in  their  nature.  This  Uterary  species  requires  that 
same  delicate  method  of  interpretation  which  may  be  illus- 
trated by  our  own  understanding  of  the  "Song  of  Solomon," 
or  measured  by  our  appreciation  of  the  seventeenth-century 
English  poets,  Donne,  Vaughan,  the  Fletchers,  and  Crashaw. 

The  paragon  of  Persian  mystic  poets  in  the  twelfth  century 
was  Attar;  in  the  thirteenth  it  was  Rumi.  These  two  mystics 
overtop  all  the  rest,  even  Jami  in  the  early  fifteenth  century. 
I  wish  I  could  illustrate  both  of  them  by  examples,  for  I  should 
hke  to  take  Jalal  ad  Din  Rumi's  long  mystical  poem,  the 


62  THE  LITERATURE   OF    INDIA  AND  PERSIA 

"Masnavi,"  as  a  specimen  of  Persian  emblematic  Literature, 
but  I  shall  have  to  content  myself  with  a  few  lines  from  the 
masterpiece  of  his  predecessor,  Farid  ad  Din  Attar,  a  com- 
position that  gives  an  allegorical  portrayal  of  the  longing  of 
the  human  soul  for  union  with  the  Divine.  The  poem  is 
filled  with  the  symbolic  language  of  Sufism.  FitzGerald 
caught  admirably  its  spirit  in  his  free  version  of  the  "Bird- 
Parhament"  of  Attar,  with  its  catchwords  of  devotion, 
hidden  under  seemingly  commonplace  terms,  and  its  spiritual 
ecstasy  concealed  beneath  what  appear  to  be  mere  offhand 
allusions.     Note  the  following,  for  example:  — 

"The  Moths  had  long  been  exiled  from  the  Flame 
They  worship  ;  so  to  solemn  council  came 
And  voted  one  of  them  by  Lot  be  sent 
To  find  their  Idol.     One  was  chosen  —  went, 
And  after  a  long  circuit  in  sheer  Gloom, 
Seeing,  he  thought,  the  taper  in  a  Room, 
Flew  back  at  once  to  say  so.     But  the  Chief 
Of  Mothistan  slighted  so  slight  Belief, 
And  sent  another  Messenger,  who  flew 
Up  to  the  House,  in  at  the  window,  through 
The  Flame  itself ;  and  back  the  Message  brings 
With  yet  no  sign  of  conflict  on  his  wings. 
Then  went  a  Third,  who  spurred  with  true  Desire, 
Plunging  at  once  into  the  sacred  Fire 
Folded  his  wings  within,  till  he  became 
One  Color  and  one  Substance  with  the  Flame. 
He  only  knew  the  Flame  who  in  it  burned, 
And  only  he  could  tell  who  ne'er  to  tell  returned." 

Persia  is  the  land  of  lyric  poetry,  the  home  of  the  nightingale 
and  the  rose.  What  more  need  I  say  on  this  theme  than 
allow  two  or  three  of  her  minstrels  to  speak  for  themselves  ? 
Here  is  a  fragment  as  early  as  900  a.d.  ;  it  is  from  Rudagi, 
the  father  of  later  Persian  song,  and  is  full  of  lovelorn  sadness : 


THE  LITERATURE   OF   INDIA  AND  PERSIA  63 

"When  dead  thou  shalt  behold  me, 

My  lips  forever  sealed, 
Life  from  my  body  severed. 

Passion  ne'er  more  revealed ; 
Then  seat  thyself  beside  me, 

Whisper  one  soft  word  yet : 
'  'Twas  I  who  slew  thee,  truly 

Alas  !  how  I  regret.' " 

Our  own  Chaucer  in  his  youth,  four  centuries  later,  could 
not  have  turned  the  verse  more  gracefully,  or  more  sadly. 
Let  us  choose  another  from  Rudagi,  a  lyric  on  wine,  and 
it  has  been  rendered  from  the  Persian  by  Professor  Cowell, 
tiie  teacher  of  "Omar"  FitzGerald:  — 

"Bring  me  yon  wine  which  thou  might'st  call  a  melted  ruby  m  its 

cup. 
Or  like  a  simitar  unsheathed,  in  the  sun's  noon-tide  hght  held  up. 
'Tis  the  rose-water,  thou  might'st   say,  yea  thrice  distilled    for 

purity ; 
Its  sweetness  falls  as  sleep's  own  balm  steals  o'er  the  vigil-wearied 

eye. 
Thou  mightest  call  the  cup  the  cloud,  the  wine  the  raindrop  from 

it  cast. 
Or  say  the  joy  that  fills  the  heart  whose  prayer  long  looked-for 

comes  at  last. 
Were  there  no  wine  all  hearts  would  be  a  desert  waste,  forlorn  and 

black. 
But  were  our  last  life-blood  extinct,  the  sight  of  wine  would  bring 

it  back. 
Oh  !  if  an  eagle  would  but  swoop,  and  bear  the  wine  up  to  the  sky. 
Far  out  of  reach  of  all  the  base,  who  would  not  shout '  Well  done !  * 

as  I." 

A  dozen  other  lyric  fragments  from  the  same  early  poet 
might  be  cited.  It  is  sometimes  an  elegy,  sometimes  a  eulogy, 
or  at  times  a  whimsical  quatrain  in  humorous  vein.     Some- 


64  THE  LITERATURE   OF   INDIA  AND  PERSIA 

body  had  twitted  Rudagi,  when  old,  on  the  vanity  of  dyeing 
his  hair.     He  playfully  responded  in  improvised  verse :  — 

"Black  is  the  color  when  we  mourn, 
And  hence  there's  reason  where 
An  old  man  takes  to  wearing  black 
By  dyeing  black  his  hair  ! " 

Handling  the  quatrain  with  lyric  skill  belongs  to  all  the 
coterie  of  this  same  period  and  afterwards.  Yet  by  none 
was  it  brought  to  higher  perfection  than  by  a  famous  phil- 
osopher, physician,  and  poet,  a  forerunner  of  Omar  Khayyam, 
the  renowned  Ibn  Sina,who  is  better  known  to  us  of  the  West 
through  the  Latinized  form  of  his  name,  Avicenna.  One  of 
his  verses  rings  so  much  like  Omar  Kha5^am  that  it  has 
generally  been  ascribed  to  the  later  poet.     It  runs:  — 

"From  Earth's  dark  Center  unto  Saturn's  Gate 
I've  solved  all  problems  of  this  World's  Estate ; 

From  every  Snare  of  Plot  and  Guile  set  free, 
Each  Bond  resolved  —  saving  alone  Death's  Fate." 

A  brother  poet  to  Avicenna  was  Abu  Said,  lyrist  and  mystic. 
In  Abu  Said  the  two  moods,  lyric  and  mystic,  were  so  closely 
combined  that  it  is  difficult  to  determine  whether  in  some  of 
his  verses  the  deep  religious  fervor  for  the  divinity  is  actually 
hidden  under  the  passionate  guise  of  love.  But  it  is  sup- 
posed to  be  there.  Here  is  one  of  these  pseudo-erotic  in- 
stances :  — 

"Last  night  in  my  beloved's  arms  I  lay, 
My  prayers  she  did  with  sweet  caresses  pay ; 
The  moon  went  down  —  the  sun  came  up  —  'twas  day. 
Blame  not  the  moon ;  we  had  too  much  to  say." 

This  version  of  mine  may  be  rough  and  imperfect,  but  it 
conveys  the  sense  and  modernness  of  touch  which  mark  some 
of  Abu  Said's  stanzas  to  a  remarkable  degree. 


THE  LITERATURE   OF   INDIA   AND  PERSIA  65 

Oft  and  again  the  lute  strings  were  touched  with  lyric  per- 
fection by  the  fingers  of  Saadi,  renowned  poet,  moralist,  and 
philosopher,  who  died  at  Shiraz  in  1291.  Here,  for  example,  is 
a  verse  with  a  pretty  turn,  bringing  out  the  legend  of  the 
origin  of  the  pearl  as  an  illustration  of  the  virtue  of  humility. 
I  give  it  fairly  closely  after  Saadi's  own  hues :  — 

"A  raindrop  fell  from  the  heavens  on  high 

And  modestly  said  as  it  sped  through  the  sky 
Into  vast  ocean  to  be  forgot, 
'It  is  God's  will  that  I  be  not.' 

"  While  viewing  itself  with  eye  of  disdain, 

A  mussel-shell  caught  up  that  wee  drop  of  rain ; 
Heaven's  vaulted  dome,  then,  did  silently  whirl, 
And  lo !  the  raindrop  became  a  pearl ! " 

It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  anything  more  delicate  and 
graceful.     Heine  would  have  reveled  in  such  a  verse. 

The  prince  of  Persian  lyric  poets,  however,  —  and  you 
know  his  name  well,  —  is  Hafiz.  I  need  not  illustrate  by 
example  either  his  beauty  or  his  skill,  because  all  lovers  of 
passionate  poetry  know  something  about  his  songs  of  the 
nightingale  and  the  rose.  The  very  verse  which  this  poet- 
lover  sings  forms  a  part  of  his  own  being  as  Hafiz  breathes 
enraptured  sighs  over  the  dark  musky  tresses  of  his  beloved, 
or  quaffs  the  ruby  wine,  red  as  the  blood  of  the  rose  on  her 
lips,  which  transports  his  soul  into  an  ecstasy,  and  makes 
his  pulse  beat  in  rhythmic  harmony  with  the  throb  of  his 
idol's  heart. 

But  my  time  is  up!  I  have  not  a  moment  to  speak  of 
Persian  prose,  so  I  shall  omit  it,  with  a  loss  more  or  less  small 
or  great.  Nor  can  I  say  anything  about  the  drama  except 
to  state  that  it  is  a  modern  creation,  hardly  a  century  old.  I 
must  dismiss  it  likewise,  adding  only  that  there  may  possibly 
inhere  in  its  crude  attempts  signs  that  florescence  is  ever 


66  THE  LITERATURE   OF   INDIA   AND   PERSIA 

possible  in  Persia.  Yet  it  is  neither  through  her  embryo 
drama  nor  through  her  older  established  prose  that  Persia  is 
going  to  live  in  Literature.  It  will  be  through  her  great  poets 
of  the  past  and  of  the  hoped-for  future,  for  the  soft  trill  of  the 
nightingale's  song  still  lingers,  and  the  delicate  aroma  of  the 
Persian  rose  will  never  depart  from  her  perfumed  atmosphere. 
The  rhythm  of  Persian  verse,  the  charm  of  its  poetic  imagery 
when  not  carried  too  far,  the  exquisite  tenderness  of  feeling, 
and  the  gentle  effusion  of  eternal  emotions  will  continue  to 
appeal  to  the  heart,  as  in  days  gone  by,  as  long  as  human 
feehng  remains  unchanged  and  human  sympathy  abides. 

The  hastiest  kind  of  a  conclusion  must  serve  as  a  close  to  this 
all  too  rapid  sketch.  We  have  traced  in  turn  the  literary 
development  of  India  and  Persia  from  the  first  gleam  of  the 
sun  at  early  dawn,  through  the  rich  crimson  of  the  morning 
light  until  it  blends  into  the  white  splendor  of  the  meridian 
day,  thence  dipping  with  slanting  golden  rays  into  the  west- 
ern sea.  And  lo!  the  sun  has  already  sped  far  downward 
into  the  darkening  West. 


IV 

CHINESE   LITERATURE 

By  Friedrich  Hirth,  Professor  of  Chinese 

The  Literature  which  forms  the  subject  of  the  present 
lecture  is  more  than  that  of  China.  As  a  foreign  Uterature 
it  is  studied  also  by  the  Coreans,  the  Japanese,  and  the 
Annamites;  and  it  may  therefore  be  quite  appropriately 
called  the  Classic  Literature  of  the  Far  East.  The  civiliza- 
tion of  all  these  nations  has  been  affected  by  its  study,  per- 
haps even  in  a  higher  degree  than  that  of  the  nations  of 
Europe  has  been  by  the  literatures  of  Greece  and  Rome. 
Millions  received  from  it,  in  the  course  of  centuries,  their 
mental  training.  The  Chinese  who  created  it  have  through 
it  perpetuated  their  national  character  and  imparted  some 
of  their  idiosyncrasies  of  thought  to  their  formerly  ilhterate 
neighbors. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  describe  in  a  few  words  the  char- 
acter of  this  Literature.  As  representing  Chinese  civih- 
zation,  it  has  been  called  Confucianist,  and  this  term  may  hit 
the  truth  if  we  look  upon  it  as  covering  not  only  works  of  the 
Confucian  school,  but  also  "Anti-Confucian"  Literature 
and  a  good  deal  of  what  is  decidedly  neutral.  Certainly,  the 
personahty  of  the  sage  stands  in  closer  relation  to  the  de- 
velopment of  Chinese  Literature  than  that  of  any  other  in- 
dividual stands  to  any  other  national  literature  either  in 
Asia  or  in  Europe.  In  its  earhest  development  Chinese  Lit- 
erature was  either  Confucianist  or  anti-Confucianist;  and 
even  in  that  conspiracy  of  silence  characteristic  of  the  oppos- 

67 


68  CHINESE  LITERATURE 

ing  schools,  the  one  man  treated  with  silence  was  Confucius. 
If  we  consider  Chinese  Literature  as  it  now  exists  in  myriads 
of  volumes,  works  which  may  be  called  Confucianist  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  word  are  in  the  minority. 

I  need  not  dwell  on  the  fact  that  Chinese  Literature  is  ab- 
solutely autochthonous.  In  this  respect  it  may  be  called 
unique,  as  scarcely  any  of  the  world's  other  national  hteratures 
worthy  of  such  a  name  may  be  said  to  have  taken  its  own 
course  without  being  influenced  by  the  civilization  of  neigh- 
boring nations.  The  development  of  Literature  in  China 
corresponds  with  that  of  the  nation  itself.  All  attempts  to 
derive  its  origin  from  quarters  outside  the  traditional  cradle 
of  the  Chinese  race  near  the  banks  of  the  Yellow  River  should 
be  treated  with  suspicion.  In  all  such  problems  which  can- 
not be  supported  by  arguments  derived  from  Literature  itself 
it  is  safer  to  admit  our  ignorance  than  to  trust  to  the  vaga- 
ries of  a  Uvely  imagination.  I  shall  not,  therefore,  here  enter 
upon  the  question  whether  the  Chinese  race  has  immigrated 
from  Babylonia  or  some  other  part  of  the  world;  for  I  quite 
agree  with  Professor  Giles,  who  says,  "No  one  knows 
where  the  Chinese  came  from,"  and  adds,  "it  appears  to  be 
an  ethnological  axiom  that  every  race  must  have  come  from 
somewhere  outside  of  its  own  territory."  Similarities  be- 
tween certain  phases  of  Chinese  culture  and  ideas  current 
in  India,  Babylonia,  and  other  seats  of  ancient  culture  may 
be  the  result  of  the  uniform  organization  of  the  human  brain, 
which  cannot  help  arriving  at  the  same  inventions  calculated 
to  make  life  more  comfortable  whether  in  the  East  or  in  the 
West;  or  they  may  be  the  result  of  relationships  of  pre- 
historic existence,  which  it  would  be  hopeless  to  trace  by  the 
means  now  at  our  disposal.  Comparative  folk-lore  abounds 
with  problems  which  neither  the  most  ancient  literature  nor 
the  prehistoric  treasures  of  our  museums  can  explain.  Look- 
ing at  the  full  moon,  I  have  often  wondered  why  I  could  not 
discover  in  its  landscape  the  figure  of  a  hare  or  a  rabbit;   and 


CHINESE  LITERATURE  69 

yet  in  remote  antiquity  millions  of  Indians  and  millions  of 
Chinese  saw  it,  as  well  probably  as  millions  of  pre-Columbian 
Mexicans  and  Mayas.  Such  similarities  can  be  traced  be- 
tween numerous  characteristics  of  Indian  folk-lore  and  what 
appear  as  repetitions  with  but  slight  modifications  in  Chinese 
Literature  as  early  as  the  fourth  century  B.C.  But,  since  no 
intercourse  has  been  shown  to  have  taken  place  between 
India  and  China  at  that  early  date,  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  the  connecting  link  lies  far  back  in  prehistoric  periods 
when  the  foundations  of  popular  tradition  on  both  sides  were 
laid  either  in  China,  or  in  India,  if  not  elsewhere.  We  need 
not  be  surprised  to  find  that  these  Indian  traditions  do  not 
appear  in  the  earlier  Chinese  Literature.  The  reason  may  be 
that  all  we  know  of  Chinese  history  and  popular  life  previous 
to  the  fourth  century  B.C.  has  been  transmitted  by  Confucian- 
ist  writers,  who  would  not  place  on  record  ideas  at  variance 
with  their  own.  But  for  this  one-sidedness  of  the  earliest 
historians  the  Chinese  would  perhaps  appear  to  us  entirely 
different  in  character  from  what  they  seem  to  have  been 
when  seen  through  the  eyes  of  Confucianists.  Those  In- 
dian reminiscences,  first  placed  on  record  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury B.C.,  may  have  been  current  in  China  from  ages  imme- 
morial. Who  can  tell  where  and  when  they  originated  ? 
Mythological  and  legendary  ideas  and  folk-lore  may  have 
been  the  property  of  a  nation  for  a  thousand  years  or  more 
before  they  make  their  appearance  in  its  literature.  The  mere 
fact  of  foreign  ideas  of  any  kind  being  thus  traced  in  a  litera- 
ture need  not,  therefore,  be  looked  upon  as  proof  of  their 
having  been  imported  from  abroad,  unless  it  can  be  shown 
under  what  circumstances  they  traveled  from  one  country 
to  another.  This  is,  however,  not  the  case  with  the  foreign 
allusions  in  the  Chinese  Literature  of  the  fourth  century  B.C. 
As  late  as  the  end  of  the  second  century  b.c.  India  was  a  terra 
incognita  to  the  Chinese.  Had  it  been  known  earlier,  the  ac- 
count of  Chang  K'ien,  the  discoverer,  whose  attention  was 


70  CHINESE  LITERATURE 

first  drawn  to  the  existence  of  such  a  country  during  his  visit 
to  Bactria  in  127  b.c,  would  not  have  been  regarded  as  a  dis- 
covery. The  traces  of  Indian  lore  found  in  Chinese  Litera- 
ture in  the  works  of  certam  post-Confucian  writers  must, 
therefore,  either  have  soaked  through  that  impenetrable 
wall  of  the  Tibetan  highlands,  or  the  deserts  of  Eastern 
Turkestan,  or  have  originated  in  prehistoric  times.  Certainly, 
part  of  the  Literature  which  the  Chinese  themselves  consider 
their  best,  the  so-called  "Chinese  Classics,"  caimot  be  said 
to  have  been  influenced  from  any  quarter. 

This  very  term,  "Chinese  Classics,"  invented  by  foreigners 
to  designate  the  standard  works  of  Confucianism,  assigns  to 
Chinese  Literature  a  distinctive  character.  If  we  speak 
of  Enghsh,  French,  or  German  classics,  we  think  of  works  of 
poetry.  The  Chinese  apply  a  different  scale  to  the  estima- 
tion of  their  Literature.  The  names  which  may  be  said 
to  stand  first  in  English  Literature,  Shakspere  and  Milton 
were  those  of  poets;  so  were  the  names  of  Schiller  and  Goethe 
in  Germany,  of  Petrarch  and  Dante  in  Italy,  and  of  Calderon 
and  Cervantes  in  Spain.  The  Chinese  are  probably  quite  as 
fond  of  their  great  poets  as  we  are  of  ours;  but  as  the  first 
representatives  of  their  Literature  they  would  never  hesitate 
to  point  to  Confucius  and  Lau-tzi,  thinkers  but  not  poets. 
All  together,  the  Chinese  classification  of  Literature  differs  a 
great  deal  from  ours,  and  it  will  be  worth  our  while  to  say  a 
few  words  on  that  subject. 

The  Chinese  do  not  possess  any  work  which  might  be  called 
"sb  history  of  Chinese  Literature."  To  make  up  for  this 
deficiency,  however,  they  possess  catalogues  of  standard  Liter- 
ature as  represented  in  their  Imperial  hbraries.  The  oldest  of 
these  catalogues  was  the  one  of  the  Imperial  collection  of  the 
earlier  Han  dynasty,  which  was  destroyed  by  fire  during  the 
insurrection  of  the  usurper  Wang-mang,  about  nineteen  hun- 
dred years  ago.  It  consists  mainly  of  a  Ust  of  books,  by 
more  than  six  hundred  authors,  arranged  with  some  kind 


CHINESE  LITERATURE  71 

of  classification,  and  headed  by  the  works  of  the  Confucian 
school. 

The  next  great  catalogue  was  that  of  the  Sui  dynasty,  de- 
scribing the  state  of  Chinese  Literature  about  618  a.d.,  when 
the  Sui  was  displaced  by  the  T'ang  dynasty.  This  catalogue 
has  furnished  the  pattern  for  all  future  classifications  of  Liter- 
ature up  to  the  present  day.  The  Imperial  collection  was  then 
for  the  first  time  divided  as  at  present,  into  four  great  divi- 
sions, called  k'u,  i.e.  "storehouses"  or  "treasuries,"  the 
arrangement  of  which  may  be  said  to  correspond  to  the  rela- 
tive estimation  in  which  the  several  branches  of  Literature 
are  held  by  Chinese  critics.  The  "Four  Treasuries"  (ss'i-k'u) 
are:  — 

(1)  Classics  (king),  by  which  name  the  works  of  the  Con- 
fucian school  with  their  extensions  and  commentaries  are 
understood ; 

(2)  Historians  (sh'i),  containing  historical,  biographical, 
geographical,  etc.,  works; 

(3)  Philosophers  {tzl),  with  the  exclusion  of  the  Confucian 
classics,  including  besides  a  host  of  miscellaneous  philosophical 
writers  the  entire  Tauist  Literature,  works  on  agriculture, 
military  science,  astronomy,  divination,  medicine,  etc.; 

(4)  Belles-lettres,  including  the  poetical  literature  and  mis- 
cellaneous prosaists. 

Several  later  catalogues  represent  the  state  of  Literature  at 
certain  periods.  Thus  we  have  one,  the  Ch'ung-wdn-tsung-mu 
in  sixty-six  volumes,  published  in  the  eleventh  century,  and 
the  description  of  the  private  collection  of  Ch'on  Chon-sun, 
a  bibliophile  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  similar  records  of 
historical  value  down  to  the  great  catalogue  of  the  Imperial 
Library  in  Peking,  published  in  1782,  now  the  principal 
source  of  our  knowledge  of  Chinese  Literature.  To  give  even 
a  faint  idea  of  the  contents  of  this  great  collection  —  con- 
sisting of  3460  works  in  more  than  75,000  volumes  —  is,  of 
course,  impossible  in  a  space  of  time  calculated  by  minutes; 


72  CHINESE  LITERATURE 

I  shall,  therefore,  have  to  confine  myself  to  a  discussion  of  a 
very  few  of  the  more  important  works. 

The  first  of  the  four  treasuries  into  which  the  Imperial 
Library,  and  with  it  Chinese  standard  Literature,  is  divided 
treats  mainly  of  Confucius  and  his  school.  Confucius  sprang 
from  a  family  named  K'ung,  whose  home  was  near  K'ii-fou  in 
the  present  province  of  Shan-tung,  where  thousands  of  descen- 
dants still  survive,  with  their  senior,  the  Duke  of  K'ung, 
probably  the  oldest  nobihty  in  the  world.  His  personal 
name  was  K'iu,  but  since  he  is  often  quoted  with  the  epithet 
Fu-tz'i,  meaning  "a  philosopher,"  his  name  and  title  K'ung 
Fu-tzl  has  in  the  early  Latin  translations  of  his  works  been 
Latinized  into  Confucius.  Being  bom  in  551  B.C.,  he  was 
almost  a  contemporary  of  Pythagoras.  His  life  was  mainly 
devoted  to  moral  and  social  reforms  among  his  people;  and, 
in  order  to  do  as  much  good  as  possible  in  this  respect,  he 
approached  the  dukes  and  princes  of  his  state  and  its  neigh- 
bors, tendering  advice  wherever  it  was  needed  and  acceptable, 
though  sometimes  with  ill  success  and  hampered  by  the  prej- 
udices of  adversaries.  By  the  study  of  books  containing 
records  of  past  periods  he  had  constructed  a  moral  stand- 
ard, which  he  exemplified  in  his  own  life  and  which  he, 
by  teaching,  persuasion,  and  government,  tried  to  cause 
others  to  adopt,  as  long  as  he  had  the  chance  to  prac- 
tise it.  As  magistrate  in  a  city  and  district  of  his  native 
state,  and  later  as  minister  of  justice,  he  enforced  what  he 
considered  good  behavior  among  the  population,  and  a  great 
deal  of  his  teaching  concerned  the  question  what  it  is  proper 
for  the  ''superior  man"  (kiin-tzi),  the  real  gentleman,  to  do, 
or  not  to  do.  His  efforts  at  moral  reform  were  crowned  with 
great  success;  but  intrigues  brought  about  an  estrangement 
with  his  duke,  which  caused  him  to  follow  a  wandering  life 
for  fourteen  years.  At  the  age  of  sixty-eight  he  was  recalled 
to  his  native  country,  where  he  died  in  479  B.C.,  leaving  a 
nimaber  of  disciples. 


CHINESE  LITERATURE  73 

With  all  the  disappointments  he  encountered  in  life,  Con- 
fucius has  certainly  had  great  influence  on  the  development 
of  the  Chinese  national  character.  This  influence  was  of  a 
threefold  kind.  It  was  based  on  his  writings,  on  his  sayings, 
and  on  the  example  of  his  personal  life.  He  did  not  write 
much  himself,  but  he  did  important  editorial  work;  and  his 
sa3dngs  were  collected  and  placed  on  record  for  the  benefit  of 
later  centuries  by  the  followers  of  his  disciples,  so  that  a  num- 
ber of  works  may  be  said  to  have  seen  the  light  under  his 
inspiration.  These  are  the  works  which  the  late  Professor 
Legge,  their  translator  and  conmientator,  has  called  the 
"Chinese  Classics."  They  consist  of  two  series  of  books,  the 
so-called  "Five  Canons"  (wu-king),  works  of  pre-Confucian 
origin,  but  partly  edited  or  compiled  by  the  sage  himself,  and 
the  "Four  Books"  (ssl-shu),  texts  connected  with  Confucius' 
life  and  teachings,  but  written  and  edited  by  later  authors. 

The  books  to  be  included  in  or  excluded  from  these  classics 
have  in  the  course  of  centuries  been  subject  to  changes  at  the 
hands  of  critics;  but  at  present  the  following  standard  is 
recognized. 

A.  The  "Five  Canons"  (wu-king)  comprise  the  following 
works:  — 

(1)  The  "Canon  of  Changes"  (I-king),  now  probably  the 
oldest  book  extant  of  the  Chinese,  mainly  a  work  on  divina- 
tion, based  on  the  so-called  pa-kua,  the  Eight  Mystic  Dia- 
grams, supposed  to  have  been  invented  by  the  legendary 
emperor  Fu-hi.  They  consist  of  a  series  of  combinations  of 
broken  and  unbroken  hues,  the  former  representing  the  female, 
the  latter  the  male,  principle  in  Chinese  natural  philosophy. 

It  has  always  impressed  me  as  one  of  the  secrets  of  the 
origin  of  language,  as  well  as  of  mankind,  why  early  man 
assigned  sex  or  gender  —  male,  female,  or  neuter  —  to  every 
o}:)ject  of  nature.  It  must  be  one  of  the  earhest  traditions  of 
mankind  that,  for  instance,  a  stone  cannot  be  merely  a  stone 
pure  and  simple,  but  that  it  must  also  be  either  a  man  or  a 


74  CHINESE  LITERATURE 

woman.  The  English  language,  it  is  true,  has  almost  eman- 
cipated itself  from  that  prejudice;  but  in  quite  a  nmnber  of 
other  languages  even  inanimate  objects  are  represented  as 
being  either  masculine  or  feminine,  if  not  neuter.  In  these 
languages  gender  may  be  indicated  by  inflection  or  by  the 
article.  The  Chinese  language  loiows  nothing  of  the  kind; 
but,  to  make  up  for  it,  the  idea  of  gender  has  survived  among 
the  people  in  its  natural  philosophy  as  a  popular  science. 
For  even  the  non-educated  in  China  know  that  the  sun  is 
male  and  the  moon  female;  that  heaven  and  earth,  day  and 
night,  north  and  south,  white  and  black  as  opposites,  are 
respectively  male  and  female.  Mysterious  influences  are 
attributed  to  the  two  sexes,  and  the  preponderance  and  rela- 
tive position  of  the  one  or  the  other  in  the  "  Eight  Diagrams  " 
expresses  conditions  which  it  would  require  a  complicated 
commentary  to  describe. 

The  original  "Eight  Diagrams,"  each  of  w-hich  consisted 
of  three  lines,  male  or  female,  and  which  were  held  to  denote 
certain  elements  of  nature,  such  as  earth,  water,  etc.,  were 
doubled  up  and  made  to  consist  of  six  lines  each  so  as  to  jdeld, 
with  all  the  possible  permutations,  sixty-four  combinations. 
Each  of  these  corresponded  to  a  certain  condition  of  life  or 
nature,  which  has  been  explained  and  extended  in  a  copious 
commentary.  This  somewhat  complicated  system  of  occult- 
ism, if  it  may  be  so  called,  is  ascribed  to  Won-wang,  the  heroic 
duke  of  a  palatinate  on  the  western  frontier,  who  is  supposed 
to  have  written  its  main  text  while  being  held  in  prison  by 
Chou-sin,  the  vicious  last  monarch  of  the  Shang  dynasty, 
whose  downfall  was  brought  about  by  Won-Wang's  son  Wu- 
wang,  the  first  emperor  of  the  Chou  dynasty  in  1122  b.c, 
according  to  the  Chinese  standard  chronology.  The  Chinese 
have  for  thousands  of  years  looked  upon  the  "Canon  of 
Changes"  as  their  chief  instrument  of  auguration;  but  from 
our  point  of  view,  it  is  merely  the  reverence  with  which  it  is 
regarded  in  China  and  its  supposed  high  antiquity  that  cause 


CHINESE   LITERATURE  75 

it  to  figure  as  one  of  the  most  important  products  of  the  native 
Literature.  Confucius  himself  recommended  it;  hence  it  has 
been  received  among  the  sacred  books  of  his  school.  The 
wildest  speculations  have  been  brought  to  bear  on  this  ''noli 
me  tangere"  by  some  European  scholars  without,  as  far  as  I 
can  judge,  any  palpable  result.  The  "Canon  of  Changes" 
may  be  looked  upon  as  the  literary  basis  of  that  mysterious 
geomantic  system  known  as  Fong-shui,  which,  ridiculous 
though  it  may  appear  to  the  European  mind,  has  exercised 
greater  and  more  lasting  influence  over  Chinese  pubhc  and 
private  life  than  thousands  of  volumes  of  sober  common-sense 
literature.  Fong-shui,  literally  translated,  means  "wind  and 
water,"  a  name  full  of  mystery,  said  to  have  been  chosen 
"because  it  is  a  thing  like  wind,  which  you  cannot  compre- 
hend, and  like  water,  which  you  cannot  grasp."  To  us 
the  "Canon  of  Changes"  with  all  of  its  Fong-shui  is  nothing 
more  than  a  huge  structure  of  systematized  superstition;  but 
how  serious  the  Chinese  have  at  all  times  been  in  their  study 
of  it  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that,  according  to  the 
Imperial  Catalogue,  a  library  of  not  less  than  317  works  in 
2371  volumes  is  devoted  to  commentaries  upon  it. 

(2)  The  "Canon  of  History"  {Shu-king),  a  collection  of 
documents  describing  certain  sections  of  the  most  ancient 
legendary  history.  In  it  the  emperors  Yau,  Shun,  and  Yii 
are  held  up  as  models  of  good  monarchs,  in  contrast  with  cer- 
tain bad  rulers  who  brought  about  the  fall  of  their  dynasties. 
It  brings  Chinese  history  down  ,to  the  foundation  of  the 
Chou  dynasty  in  the  twelfth  century  B.C.,  and  refers  to  events 
reaching  well  into  the  eighth  century  according  to  the  Chinese 
standard  chronology,  wliieh  in  the  earlier  period  is,  of  course, 
very  doubtful.  It  is,  however,  backed  by  the  coincidence  of 
certain  eclipses  of  the  sun  mentioned  in  Chinese  records  with 
those  calculated  by  Western  astronomers  as  having  actually 
occurred  as  early  as  776  and  720  b.c.  Unfortunately  the 
Shu-king  is  our  only  source  of  the  most  ancient  history;  and, 


76  CHINESE  LITERATURE 

though  it  reflects  apparently  the  orthodox  views  of  the  gov- 
erning classes,  —  emperors,  feudal  lords,  and  officials,  —  it  is 
one-sided  as  a  purely  Confucianist  work.  A  few  generations 
after  Confucius  Chinese  Literature  reveals  characteristics 
of  culture,  folk-lore,  and  art  which  must  have  required  cen- 
turies to  develop,  and  which  are  entirely  lost  in  such  works  as 
the  Shu-king,  because  they  did  not  fit  into  the  orthodox 
frame  of  a  Confucian  classic.  The  records  regarding  that 
early  legendary  period  of  Chinese  national  life  have,  of  course, 
to  be  studied  cum  grano  salis:  the  good  men  shown  up  in  them 
are  much  too  good,  and  the  bad  men  are  much  too  bad,  to  be 
considered  as  having  been  drawn  from  life.  But  this  need  not 
condemn  the  book  as  entirely  worthless.  Hypercritical 
minds,  which  can  often  be  proved  to  be  the  least  critical,  have 
tried  to  discredit  the  Confucian  tradition  to  suit  some  sensa- 
tional theory.  Thus  we  hear  that  the  early  heroes  of  Chinese 
tradition  down  to  the  time  when  undoubted  history  begins 
were  not  Chinese  at  all,  but  were  Indian  gods  grafted  on  the 
real  Chinese  history;  and  another  much  too  ingenious  author 
recently  wrote  a  book  with  motives  quite  different  from  those 
which  resulted  in  Archbishop  Whately's  "  Historic  Doubts 
relative  to  Napoleon  Bonaparte,"  in  which  he  tried  to  prove 
that  no  such  personage  as  Confucius  ever  lived,  and  that  the 
entire  early  Chinese  history  did  not  exist. 

(3)  The  "Canon  of  Odes"  {Shi-king),  containing  over 
three  hundred  poems  which  have  been  current  among  the 
people  before  Confucius'  time.  Some  of  these  odes  can  be 
fixed  in  connection  with  certain  historical  facts,  and  many 
may  have  been  sung  by  the  nation  and  its  bards  centuries 
before  they  were  collected,  arranged,  and  edited  by  Confucius, 
who  may  be  said  to  have  done  for  them  what  the  Grimm 
brothers  did  for  the  German  fairy  tales.  The  odes  of  the 
Shi-king  are  a  mine  of  information  for  the  most  ancient  culture 
of  the  Chinese;  but  they  are,  of  course,  dry  reading  for  those 
who  expect  a  literal  translation.     If  the  translation  of  poetry 


CHINESE  LITERATURE  77 

from  foreign  languages  generally  is  an  unwelcome  task,  re- 
quiring as  it  does  a  philologist  and  a  poet  combined  in  the 
translator  who  is  constantly  subject  to  the  conflict  between 
faithful  adherence  to  the  original  and  poetic  hcense,  the 
rendering  of  a  Chinese  poem  into  English  is  a  particularly 
thankless  one.  For  a  literal  translation  the  philological  edi- 
tion of  the  Shi-king  by  the  late  Professor  Legge  is  the  standard 
work.  However,  Dr.  Legge  was  anything  but  a  poet.  The 
flavor  of  these  ancient  rhymes  may  appeal  to  a  native  thor- 
oughly at  home  in  Chinese  ancient  folk-lore,  but  will  hardly 
ever  do  so  to  a  European  reader.  Readable  translations,  of 
course,  lose  as  much  in  philological  accuracy  as  they  gain  in 
poetical  charm.  There  is  an  excellent  German  translation 
by  Victor  von  Strauss,  in  which  the  poetic  spirit  is  occasion- 
ally rendered  without  sacrificing  too  much  of  pliilological 
accuracy;  and  among  English  translations  the  one  that  will 
appeal  most  to  Western  readers  is  that  of  Mr,  Clement  F.  R. 
Allen.  Such  as  it  is,  I  look  upon  the  venerable  "  Canon  of 
Odes"  rather  as  a  source  of  information  on  Chinese  ancient 
culture  than  of  poetical  enjojmient. 

(4)  The  "Canon  of  Rites"  (Li-ki),  a  collection  of  rules 
describing,  to  the  minutest  detail,  the  ceremonial  to  be  ob- 
served by  the  Chinese  gentleman  on  all  occasions  of  daily  life. 
Similar  in  spirit  is  another  work,  which  is  not  now  comprised 
among  the  "Five  Canons,"  though  fully  as  important  as  the 
Li-ki.  It  describes  under  the  title  Chou-li  the  government 
and  its  many  subdi\isions  with  their  functions  during  the 
Chou  dynasty. 

(5)  The  "Spring  and  Autumn,"  in  Chinese,  Ch'un-ts'iu, 
an  historical  work  containing  in  the  tersest  possible  language 
the  annals  of  the  state  of  Lu,  where  Confucius  was  born.  It 
is  supposed  to  have  been  compiled  by  Confucius  himself;  and 
its  style,  consisting  in  the  simple  statement  of  events  in 
strictly  chronological  order,  has  become  the  pattern  for  numer- 
ous later  works  on  historical  subjects.     Much  more  important 


78  CHINESE  LITERATURE 

than  the  "Spring  and  Autumn"  annals  is  the  commentaty 
upon  them  known  as  Tso-chuan,  by  Tso-k'iu  Ming,  which  is 
the  chief  source  of  our  knowledge  of  Chinese  history  during 
the  period  covered  by  it,  722-469  B.C. 

The  "Five  Canons"  do  not  contain  any  of  the  teachings  of 
Confucius;  but,  having  been  edited,  compiled, or  recommended 
and  approved  by  the  sage,  they  have  been  received  among 
the  Confucian  classics.  His  teachings  are  embodied  in  the 
"Four  Books,"  or  ssl-shu,  the  real  text-books  of  Confucianism, 
viz. : — 

(1)  The  Lun-yiX,  hterally  translated  "Conversations," 
or  "Discourses,"  because  the  master's  views  are  set  forth  in 
them  in  the  form  of  dialogues.  Legge  calls  the  book  "Con- 
fucian Analects."  The  key-note  of  these  discourses  is  that 
virtue  placed  by  the  Chinese  of  all  ages  above  every  other,  — 
namely,  filial  piety.  This  is  the  source  of  all  happiness  in 
family  life;  it  covers  the  respect  due  to  the  senior  by  the  junior, 
and,  in  its  widest  sense,  is  applicable  to  society  at  large.  The* 
State  with  its  government  is  merely  family  Ufe  on  a  larger 
scale.  The  sovereign  and  his  assistants  represent  father  and 
mother,  and  the  people,  their  subjects,  may  be  called  their 
children,  who  owe  them  obedience  as  part  of  their  filial  piety 
in  the  broader  sense.  Man  in  his  relation  to  the  world  is  con- 
sidered from  five  points  of  view,  hence  the  "five  relations" 
(wu-lun):  (1)  sovereign  and  subject,  (2)  father  and  son, 
(3)  husband  and  wife,  (4)  elder  and  younger  brother,  (5)  friend 
and  friend.  In  each  of  these  relations  man  has  his  duties, 
the  proper  discharge  of  which  determines  the  character  of  the 
ideal  good  man,  kun-tz'i,  usually  translated  by  "the  Superior 
Man"  —  the  very  reverse  of  Nietzsche's  "super-man." 
Every  respectable  Chinese  of  the  Confucian  school  tries  to 
conform  his  character  as  nearlj^  as  possible  to  that  of  the  Su- 
perior Man.  We  must,  of  course,  look  upon  Confucius  him- 
self as  an  example  of  the  Chinese  model  gentleman  of  all  ages, 
and  so,  indeed,  he  was,  as  regards  purity  of  morals,  loyalty  to 


CHINESE  LITERATURE  79 

his  sovereign  and  government,  and  deep  respect  for  the  social 
order  of  his  time  and  nation.  But  he  clearly  went  too  far  in 
matters  of  detail.  Imagine  the  subject  of  a  small  European 
State  carrying  his  loyalty  so  far  as  to  don  his  dress-coat,  white 
necktie,  and  all  his  decorations  even  on  his  sick-bed  because 
his  grand-duke  had  announced  an  intended  visit  to  the  pa- 
tient. This  is  what  Confucius  is  supposed  to  have  done. 
For  we  read:  "When  he  was  sick,  and  the  prince  came  to  visit 
him,  he  had  his  face  to  the  east  (the  correct  position  for  a  per- 
son in  bed),  caused  his  court  robes  to  be  spread  over  him,  and 
drew  his  girdle  across  them."  Quite  a  number  of  similar  inci- 
dents, illustrating  his  pedantic  adherence  to  little  acts  of  cere- 
mony, and  representing  him  as  a  man  full  of  caprice,  have  been 
placed  on  record  in  the  tenth  book  of  the  Lun-iju,  with  an 
amount  of  devotion  not  surpassed  even  by  Boswell's  regard 
for  the  great  Dr.  Johnson's  little  weaknesses. 

(2)  "The  Great  Learning"  (Ta-hio),  a  short  treatise  on 
self-culture,  based  on  knowledge  as  a  means  of  reforming 
society. 

(3)  "The  Doctrine  of  the  Mean"  (Chung-yung) ,  also  trans- 
lated by  "The  Golden  Medium."  It  recommends  the  middle 
course  in  all  walks  of  life. 

(4)  "The  Philosopher  Mong  "  (Mbng-tzi),  i.e.  Mencius,  the 
name  invented,  like  that  of  Confucius,  by  European  trans- 
lators writing  in  Latin.  Mencius  flourished  about  two  cen- 
turies after  Confucius;  but  he  did  more  in  working  out  the 
Confucian  system,  and  especially  in  applying  it  to  practical 
state  and  social  life,  than  all  the  contemporaneous  disciples 
and  even  the  master  himself.  This  may  have  been  due  to 
the  fact  that,  to  prove  the  correctness  of  his  views  against  so 
many  rival  philosophers  who  had  been  successful  since  Con- 
fucius' lifetime,  he  had  to  double  his  efforts  to  make  himself 
understood  by  the  masses.  Mencius  has  thus  become  a  real 
educator  of  his  people.  Compared  with  Confucius  he  is 
moderate  in  requiring  the  observance  of  outer  formalities; 


80  CHINESE  LITERATURE 

but  he  insists  on  the  perfection  of  the  inner  man.  Benevo- 
lence and  justice  are  the  great  virtues  which  should  govern 
man's  actions  in  all  his  relations,  the  most  important  of  these 
relations  being  that  of  sovereign  and  people;  and  sovereigns 
should  cultivate  these  virtues  in  the  first  instance.  The  great 
lesson  Mencius  gives  to  mankind  of  all  times  and  throughout 
the  world  concerns  the  education  of  one's  personal  character. 
Character  is  more  important  than  cleverness.  Man's  life 
ought  to  be  a  constant  strife  in  subduing  one's  passions; 
and  all  this  striving  for  perfection  should  not  be  undertaken 
for  the  sake  of  external  rewards,  but  for  the  pleasure  one  takes 
in  perfection  itself. 

Like  Confucius,  Mencius  was  loyal  to  the  traditional  sov- 
ereigns and  the  federal  constitution  of  the  Chou  dynasty. 
His  zeal  in  this  respect  was  boimd  later  to  stigmatize  the  Con- 
fucianist  school  as  the  chief  enemy  of  the  new  order  of  things 
under  Shi-huang-ti,  the  first  emperor  of  the  Ts'in  dynasty, 
who  had  gained  the  throne  of  China  by  the  utter  disregard  of 
loyalty  and  legitimacy.  This  emperor,  the  celebrated  "burner 
of  the  books,"  resolved  to  blot  out  every  trace  of  that  school 
which  was  bound  both  by  tradition  and  by  its  entire  character 
to  side  with  the  ruined  house  of  Chou  and  its  ancestors.  The 
emperor's  plan,  suggested  to  him  by  his  minister  Li  Ssi,  to 
destroy  all  existing  Literature  with  the  exception  of  works 
on  divination,  agriculture,  and  mechcine,  could  not,  of  course, 
prevent  many  books  from  being  secretly  buried,  immured, 
or  otherwise  concealed,  and  thus  saved  from  oblivion. 

The  Confucian  classics  of  which  I  have  tried  to  give  a  faint 
idea  are,  of  course,  not  the  only  books  forming  the  first  of  the 
"Four  Treasuries"  of  Literature.  The  greater  part  consists 
of  commentaries  and  expositions  and  some  independent  works 
of  ancient  origin,  not  received  among  the  number  of  canons, 
such  as  the  Hiau-king,  or  "Canon  of  Filial  Piety,"  ascribed 
to  Tsong  Ts'an,  one  of  the  disciples  of  Confucius,  and  the 
ir-ya,  a  dictionary  of  terms  used  in  the  Classics,  the  oldest 


CHINESE  LITERATURE  81 

work  of  its  kind.  The  study  of  the  Classics  has  given  rise  to 
quite  a  number  of  glossaries  and  dictionaries  published  from 
the  beginning  of  our  era  down  to  the  K'ang-hi  period.  In 
some  of  these  special  attention  is  paid  to  the  structm-e  of  the 
ideograms  representing  the  words  to  be  explained,  as  in  the 
Shuo-won,  published  in  100  a.d.;  others  are  chiefly  devoted 
to  the  description  of  sounds.  The  modern  standard  dictionary 
is  that  published  by  a  commission  of  scholars  under  the  em- 
peror K'ang-hi,  a  philological  compilation  of  undoubted  au- 
thority somewhat  like  the  ''Dictionnaire  de  I'Academie"  in 
France.  Its  definitions  are  supported  by  numerous  quota- 
tions from  the  entire  standard  Literature.  Still  more  detailed 
is  another  work,  published  by  the  same  great  emperor  in  1711, 
the  P^e'i-w'6n-yun-fu,  in  more  than  a  hundred  volumes.  This 
is  a  concordance  of  many  thousands  of  passages  arranged 
according  to  the  rhyme  of  the  last  character  in  terms  of  two 
or  more  syllables  serving  as  catchwords:  it  is  of  the  greatest 
use  to  all  students  engaged  in  Chinese  research  work. 

The  second  of  the  "Four  Treasuries"  is  the  one  called 
Shi,  or  "Historians."  It  comprises  works  on  the  history  of 
China  and  her  neighbors  in  Asia,  covering  besides  history  in 
the  proper  sense  a  number  of  cognate  branches  such  as  biog- 
raphy, geography,  etc.  The  historical  works  of  Confucian 
origin,  such  as  the  Shu-king,  the  Ch'un-ts'iu  and  their  com- 
mentaries, have  been  included  among  the  Literature  on  clas- 
sics and  do  not  appear  in  the  historical  Treasury. 

The  first  place  in  this  division  is  given  to  the  so-called 
"Twenty-four  Histories"  {ir-shi-ssi  shi),  each  of  which  is  gen- 
erally devoted  to  one  of  the  several  dynasties  that  have  oc- 
cupied the  Imperial  throne.  Apart  from  the  differences  in 
style  and  arrangement  these  quasi-official  histories  are  dis- 
tinguished from  other  historical  works  mainly  by  their  origin. 
They  have  all  been  compiled  by  government  officials  holding 
the  position  of  state  historiographers  ad  hoc;  and  the  records 
on  which  they  are  based  belonged  to  the  secret  archives  to 


82  CHINESE  LITERATURE 

which  only  the  confidential  state  historiographer  had  access. 
He  was  supposed  to  withhold  information  on  what  he  had 
entered  in  these  records  from  any  one  among  his  contempo- 
raries, not  excepting  even  the  sovereign  and  his  ministers. 
The  histories  of  the  several  dynasties  were  not  written  until 
some  time  after  their  fall,  when  certain  historians  of  the  suc- 
ceeding dynasty  were  commissioned  to  compile  them  from 
materials  taken  over  with  their  archives.  This  system  has 
worked  well  enough  in  China;  and  we  have  scarcely  any  more 
reason  to  find  fault  with  its  results  than  we  have  with  histori- 
cal works  in  the  West.  We  meet  with  exaggerated  views, 
of  course;  and  differences  of  opinion  have  in  China,  as  they 
have  with  us,  given  rise  to  volumes  of  criticisms;  but  the 
apologies  for  misjudged  characters  are  probably  not  more 
frequent  in  Chinese  history  than  they  are  in  that  of  Rome. 

At  the  head  of  the  twenty-four  Histories  stands  as  the 
oldest  and  best  the  Ski-ki  by  Ssi-ma  Ts'ien,  the  Herodotus 
of  China,  who  died  about  85  B.C.  It  describes  the  history 
of  China  as  accepted  by  native  scholars  from  the  time  of 
Huang-ti,  supposed  to  have  lived  about  2700  years  B.C., 
down  to  the  time  of  the  emperor  Wu-ti.  Ssi-ma  Ts'ien  was 
a  contemporary  of  the  celebrated  general  Chang  K'ien,  the 
Columbus  of  the  Chinese,  who  traveled  to  the  banks  of  the 
Oxus,  and,  after  a  visit  to  the  Indo-Scj^thian  court  and  the 
Greek  kingdom  of  Bactria,  was  the  first  to  tell  his  countrymen 
that  the  world  contained  some  other  countries  inhabited  by 
civilized  nations  like  the  Chinese.  Chang  K'ien's  report  is 
reproduced  in  the  Shi-ki.  It  inaugurates  a  new  era  in  Chinese 
art  and  culture,  the  era  of  foreign.  Western  Asiatic,  and  even 
Greek  influences  by  way  of  Bactria  and  the  Tarim  basin. 
The  gigantic  work  of  translating  the  Shi-ki  into  French  has 
been  successfully  undertaken  by  Professor  Ed.  Chavannes 
of  Paris. 

The  remaining  djniastic  histories  are  arranged  on  an  almost 
uniform  plan.     They  are  mostly  introduced  by  a  series  of 


CHINESE  LITERATURE  83 

chronological  accounts,  recording  day  by  day  the  events 
that  had  occurred  under  each  of  the  several  emperors  of  the 
dynasty.  "Court  chronicles"  we  may  call  them  as  distin- 
guished from  the  second  part,  in  which  we  find  valuable 
material  for  the  study  of  certain  phases  of  cultural  life,  such  as 
astronomy,  ceremonial,  music,  criminal  law,  political  econ- 
omy, literature,  etc.  The  greater  part  of  the  entire  history, 
however,  is  devoted  to  the  biographies  of  the  remarkable  men 
of  the  time,  to  which  are  added  accounts  of  the  foreign  nations 
known  to  the  Chinese.  These  accounts  are  of  the  greatest 
value  to  the  investigator  of  Asiatic  history  and  geography. 
They  contain  ethnographical  sketches  of  the  Tartar  nations  in 
the  north  and  west  of  China,  chief  among  whom  there  were 
in  ancient  times  the  Hiung-nu,  the  Huns  of  Western  history, 
whose  migrations  to  the  confines  of  Europe  can  be  traced  to 
periods  as  early  as  the  first  century  B.C.  Their  place  during 
the  earl}'^  part  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  taken  by  the  Eastern 
and  Western  Turks,  their  blood  relations,  whose  history  ap- 
pears in  lapidary  style  in  Old-Turkish  characters  on  some 
famous  stone  slabs  discovered  by  Russian  travelers  in  Mon- 
golia. The  work  of  deciphering  these  mysterious  inscriptions, 
formerly  believed  to  be  runes,  has  been  greatly  facilitated 
by  the  detailed  ethnographical  accounts  found  in  the  dynastic 
history  of  the  period.  These  accounts  are  also  our  chief  source 
of  information  for  the  later  Turks  known  as  Uigurs  and  down 
to  our  own  times  of  the  Mongols,  Tunguses,  etc.  Even  por- 
tions of  the  Roman  Empire  are  described  in  contemporaneous 
accounts,  the  identification  and  interpretation  of  which  has 
become  an  unexpected,  helpful  source  for  our  knowledge  of 
ancient  trade  and  traffic  with  the  Far  East. 

Another  class  of  historical  works  has  been  created  in  imita- 
tion of  Confucius'  "Spring  and  Autumn"  annals.  The 
oldest  of  these  was  discovered  in  284  a.d.  in  a  tomb  dating 
from  about  300  B.C.  It  deals  in  chronological  order  with  the 
most  ancient  history  of  China,  and  since  it  was  written  on 


84  CHINESE  LITERATURE 

bamboo  tablets,  the  old  style  of  writing,  it  was  called  the 
"Bamboo  Book"  annals.  But  the  most  important  work  in 
the  "Annals"  style  is  the  "Mirror  of  History"  by  Ssi-ma 
Kuang,  who  died  in  1086  a.d.  A  century  after  him  it  was 
republished  with  copious  amplifications  and  commentaries 
under  the  title  T'ung-kien-kang-mu.  The  substance  of  this 
work  has  been  reproduced  in  Father  de  Mailla's  celebrated 
French  "Histoire  de  la  Chine." 

These  are  the  principal  divisions  of  the  historical  section, 
which  is,  of  course,  very  far  from  being  exhausted  by  the  few 
works  I  have  named.  The  Imperial  Catalogue  contains 
hundreds  of  titles  of  books  of  great  importance,  though  not 
included  in  the  standard  histories,  works  on  biography 
and  geography,  descriptions  of  ancient  capitals,  and  accounts 
of  foreigns  nations.  Among  geographical  works  China  can 
boast  of  thousands  of  local  gazetteers,  resembling  each  other 
in  general  arrangement,  the  so-called  chi.  Provinces,  pre- 
fectures, magistracies,  famous  hills,  lakes,  and  rivers,  even 
convents  and  temples,  have  their  chi,  giving  accounts  of  their 
history,  topography,  antiquities,  local  literature,  etc.  The 
water-courses  of  the  empire  in  its  widest  extent  are  repre- 
sented by  detailed  accounts,  one  of  the  best  known  among 
which  is  the  Shut-king,  or  "Water  Classic,"  with  its  com- 
mentary, a  most  valuable  source  of  historical  geography  in 
about  500  A.D.  Reports  on  their  journeys  by  celebrated 
Buddhist  devotees,  such  as  Fa  Hi^n  and  Hiian  Tsang,  each  of 
whom  spent  about  fifteen  years  in  India  in  the  fifth  and 
seventh  centuries  respectively,  also  appear  among  historical 
books.  So  does  the  political  cyclopedia  of  800  a.d.,  the 
T'ung-tien,  and  its  continuation  by  Ma  Tuan-lin,  the  W'on- 
hien-t'ung-k'au  of  1322.  Works  on  government  and  law, 
the  several  catalogues  of  public  and  private  libraries,  together 
with  quite  a  long  list  of  works  on  stone  and  bronze  inscrip- 
tions, contain  titles  of  great  importance. 

The  third  Treasury  is  that  of  the  Philosophers  (tzl).     This 


CHINESE   LITERATURE  85 

is  the  literal  translation;  but  it  should  be  understood  that  a 
great  many  writers  are  represented  in  it  whom  we  should  call 
anything  but  philosophers,  while  others  who  might  deserve 
that  name,  such  as  Confucius  and  Mencius,  have  been  dealt 
with  in  the  "Treasury  of  Classics."  Its  first  subdivision,  called 
that  of  the  "Literati"  {ju-kia),  comprises  a  large  number  of 
writers  on  Confucianism,  the  best  known  among  which  is  the 
great  defender  of  this  doctrine,  Chu  Hi.  He  and  quite  a  num- 
ber of  his  literary  friends  were  the  disciples  of  Chou  Tun-i, 
the  founder  of  a  kind  of  rationalism  based  on  the  theory  of  the 
male  and  female  principles  of  the  "Book  of  Changes,"  which 
he  says  emanate  from  one  common  source,  the  "Great  Ex- 
treme," the  ultimate  immaterial  principle  of  all  things. 

Special  sections  are  devoted  to  writers  on  "Mihtary  Sci- 
ence" (ping-kia),  on  "Legislation"  (fa-kia),  "Agriculture" 
(nbng-kia),  "Medicine"  (i-kia),  and  other  branches.  The 
"Military  Science"  Literature  is,  of  course,  destined  to  be  set 
aside  in  order  to  be  replaced  by  the  more  useful  translations 
of  works  on  European  warfare.  Similar  experiences  will  be 
made  in  other  branches,  such  as  legislation,  astronomy,  and 
mathematics.  The  modern  reform  movement,  initiated  by 
the  labors  of  K'ang  Yu-wei  and  Liang  K'i-chou,  has  already 
created  a  Literature  of  its  own,  and  wall  open  up  a  new  world 
to  the  Chinese  mind  within  the  next  few  decades.  The  re- 
shaping of  old  methods  in  China  is  bound  to  affect  Chinese 
Literature  as  much  as  political  and  social  life  itself,  and  many 
of  the  time-honored  works  figuring  now  on  the  shelves  of  the 
philosophical  "Treasury"  will  serve  as  a  source  for  historical 
studies  only.  In  this  respect,  however,  they  will  retain  their 
eternal  value.  The  philosopher  Kuan-tzi  will  at  all  times  hold 
his  position  as  the  politician  who  applied  the  statistical  method 
to  practical  statesmanship  as  early  as  the  seventh  century 
B.C.;  and  works  like  the  great  Chinese  pharmacopoeia,  the 
Pon-ts'au-kang-mu  of  the  sixteenth  century  a.d.,  as  repre- 
senting the  entire  stock  of  Chinese  science  reviewed  histori- 


86  CHINESE  LITERATURE 

cally  from  the  earliest  time  will  not  be  set  aside  for  genera- 
tions to  come. 

Works  on  medicine,  of  which  subject  the  Chinese  have  a 
very  extensive  Literature,  and  those  on  divination  will  be 
studied  as  long  as  the  "Book  of  Changes"  is  considered  the 
source  of  all  wisdom;  and  foreign  science  with  all  its  superior 
methods  will  find  it  hard  to  drive  them  out  of  the  field. 
Works  on  Art,  like  Art  itself,  are  always  sure  to  have  their 
eternal  value;  and  Chinese  Literature,  unlike  the  literatures 
of  Western  Asia,  is  quite  rich  in  such  works  throwing  light  on 
the  development  of  pictorial  art,  calligraphy,  music,  archery, 
etc.  Archeeology,  too,  has  its  literature  in  a  long  series  of 
special  works,  and  there  are  few  varieties  among  the  celebrated 
objects  of  vertu  coming  from  China  which  are  not  described 
from  the  historical  and  technical  point  of  view  in  some  general 
work,  or  some  monograph.  Such  monographs  we  have  on 
ancient  swords,  tripods,  and  other  sacrificial  bronzes,  bricks 
and  tiles,  ink -stones,  ink  cakes,  coins ;  and  not  only  the  chinoi- 
series  of  our  museums  have  been  described  in  special  notices, 
but  almost  every  important  phase  of  cultural  life  has  its  mono- 
graph. Thus  we  have  special  books  on  tea,  on  wine,  on 
bamboo  trees,  oranges,  chrysanthemums,  mushrooms,  on 
soups,  on  diet,  etc. 

The  class  of  writers  that  seems  to  justify  the  name  of  the 
"Treasury"  are  the  "Philosophers."  We  have  scarcely 
time  to  mention  their  names.  One  of  the  best  known  is  Mo 
Ti,  also  known  by  his  Latinized  name  Micius,  the  philosopher 
of  mutual  love,  who  presented  an  almost  Christian  altruism, 
as  opposed  to  Yang  Chu,  whose  pessimism  was  of  the  most 
ignoble  kind;  to  call  him  "the  philosopher  of  egotism" 
would  sound  like  an  apology. 

Among  the  most  useful  classes  of  books  are  the  several 
cyclopedias  containing  under  certain  classified  heads  extracts 
about  almost  any  subject  treated  upon  in  the  recognized  stand- 
ard Literature.     The   most   extensive  work   of  this  kind  is 


CHINESE  LITERATURE  87 

the  T'u-shu-tsi-ch'ong  in  more  than  5000  volumes.  It  is 
the  most  bulky  printed  book  in  the  world  and,  when  set 
up,  fills  the  walls  of  a  well-sized  room.  It  was  printed  with 
movable  copper  type  and  pubUshed  in  1731,  only  a  hundred 
copies  being  struck  off  at  the  time.  Columbia  University 
owns  a  copy  of  this  remarkable  work,  a  reprint  in  the  size  of 
the  original,  of  which  250  copies  were  made  a  few  years  ago 
at  the  expense  of  the  old  Tsung-li-yamen.  The  "Treasury 
of  Philosophers"  closes  with  the  two  very  important  and 
voluminous  divisions  "Buddhism"  and  "Tauism."  Thou- 
sands of  works  are  devoted  to  that  religion  which  came  from 
India  and  which  has  taken  possession  of  the  masses  probably 
more  than  any  other  teaching.  The  greater  part  of  these 
Buddhist  books  consists  of  translations  from  the  Sanskrit. 
These  translations  were  prepared  between  the  first  and  ninth 
centuries  a.d.,  partly  by  Chinese  devotees  who  traveled  to 
India  and  returned  to  China  laden  with  formerly  unknown 
sacred  books,  and  partly  by  Indians  who  had  studied  Chinese 
in  China.  Through  these  translations  thousands  of  religious 
technical  terms  have  been  introduced  into  the  Chinese  lan- 
guage from  some  Indian  prototype,  and  all  Chinese  Buddhist 
texts  bristle  with  Sanskrit  words  transcribed  in  Chinese  char- 
acters. In  the  Buddhist  divine  service  these  foreign  words 
are  not  understood  by  the  masses;  but  the  priests  study  them 
carefully  with  the  assistance  of  glossaries ;  Sanskrit  is  thus  to 
Chinese  Buddhists  what  Latin  is  to  the  Roman  Catholics, 
a  sealed  book  to  the  masses  and  an  object  of  study  to  the 
clergy.  The  Imperial  Catalogue  ignores  this  class  of  Litera- 
ture as  a  foreign  element;  but  Buddhist  works  of  purely 
Chinese  origin  are  duly  recorded.  Among  these  the  Fa-yuan- 
chu-lin,  a  work  of  the  seventh  century  in  100  sections,  ex- 
plaining the  Buddhist  philosophy  to  Chinese  readers,  and  a 
series  of  learned  works  containing  the  biographies  of  over  a 
thousand  celebrated  Buddhist  saints  and  priests  under  the 
title  Kau-song-chuan  deserve  to  be  mentioned. 


88  CHINESE  LITERATURE 

The  worlcs  on  Tauism  are  much  better  represented  in  the 
great  Catalogue  than  those  on  Buddhism.  The  Tau-to-king, 
that  incomprehensible  text  ascribed  to  Lau-tzi  himself,  with 
all  its  many  editions  and  commentaries,  claims,  of  course, 
the  chief  attention  of  Chinese  literary  circles.  The  work  has 
been  declared  a  forgery  by  Professor  Giles,  who  has  also  trans- 
lated that  most  important  Tauist  work  of  the  philosopher 
Chuang-tzi,  which  may  be  looked  upon  as  by  far  the  best  and 
most  intelligible  exponent  of  early  Tauism.  All  together  the 
Imperial  Catalogue  discusses  144  works  under  the  head  of 
"Tauism." 

To  do  justice  to  the  last  and  by  far  the  most  voluminous 
among  the  "Four  Treasuries,"  that  of  Belles-Lettres,  with 
the  polite  Literature  of  the  Chinese,  I  should  have  been  obliged 
to  set  insufficient  store  by  the  Classics,  the  Historians,  and  the 
Philosophers,  more  important  in  shaping  the  Chinese  national 
character,  though  perhaps  less  interesting  from  the  foreign 
point  of  view.  Of  its  five  subdivisions  the  first  deals  with  the 
so-called  "Elegies  of  Ch'u,"  because  they  take  precedence 
on  account  of  their  high  antiquity.  Their  author,  K'ii  Yiian, 
had  been  the  intimate  friend  and  adviser  of  his  sovereign,  the 
King  of  Ch'u,  a  large  and  powerful  country  on  the  banks  of  the 
Yang-tzi,  about  314  b.c,  but  fell  into  disgrace  through  the 
unjust  denouncement  of  a  set  of  jealous  courtiers.  His  mel- 
ancholy outbursts  of  feeling  over  the  unjustness  of  his  fate 
formed  the  subject  of  a  poem  by  him,  entitled  "Li-sau,"  "In- 
curring Misfortune,"  or  "Under  a  Cloud."  When  his  enemies 
continued  their  persecutions,  he  drowned  himself.  This  sad 
event  is  commemorated  throughout  China  on  the  anniversary 
of  its  occurrence  in  the  midsummer  by  a  kind  of  regatta  known 
as  the  dragon-boat  festival.  K'ii  Yiian's  world-weariness, 
traces  of  which  may  be  discovered  in  the  early  ballads  of  the 
still  more  ancient  "Canon  of  Odes"  as  well  as  in  later  poems, 
may  be  due  to  a  kind  of  emotional  susceptibility  that  we  may 
even  now  have  occasion  to  observe  as  a  characteristic  among 


CHINESE  LITERATURE  89 

the  Chinese.  K'li  Yiian's  poetry  set  the  example  to  some  of 
his  contemporaries,  whose  effusions  were  miited  to  his  under 
the  title  "Elegies  of  Ch'u." 

The  second  subdivision  is  entitled  "Individual  Collections," 
the  "ffiuvres  completes"  of  certain  writers.  They  contain 
Literature  of  every  description,  and  some  of  China's  greatest 
poets,  especially  those  of  that  classical  eighth  century  a.d. 
Among  these  we  find  the  Chinese  Anacreon  Li  T'ai-po,  Tu  Fu, 
Po  Kii-i,  and  other  poets  of  the  T'ang  dynasty.  Professor 
Giles,  to  whose  judicious  collection  of  extracts  called  "Gems 
of  Chinese  Literature,"  I  would  refer,  says  of  this  period: 
"It  was  the  epoch  of  glittering  poetry  (untranslatable  alas!), 
of  satire,  of  invective,  and  of  opposition  to  the  strange  and 
fascinating  creed  of  Buddha.  Imagination  began  to  flow 
more  easily  and  more  musically,  as  though  responsive  to  the 
demands  of  art." 

This  poetry  is  chiefly  of  the  lyrical  kind;  and  if  I  were  asked 
to  find  a  characteristic  word  for  some  of  its  characteristic 
specimens,  I  would  select  that  untranslatable  German  word 
"Stimmung."  Chinese  poems  are  often  pointless;  but  they 
introduce  us  into  some  distinct  frame  of  mind  as  the  picture  of 
a  clever  landscapist  introduces  us  to  some  distinct  condition  of 
nature.  The  little  poems  of  Wang  Wei,  who  was  one  of  the 
greatest  artists  as  well  as  a  distinguished  poet  of  that  period, 
may  be  called  typical  in  this  respect,  and  Su  Tung-po,  the  great 
poet  of  the  eleventh  century,  could  not  have  expressed  this  idea 
better  than  when  he  indorsed  one  of  his  paintings  with  merely 
two  lines :  — 

"Hark  to  Wang  Wei's  odes,  and  ye  will  behold  his  pictures; 
Look  at  Wang  Wei's  pictures,  and  ye  will  hear  his  odes." 

The  Chinese  have  no  epic,  and  the  drama  did  not  originally 
exist  in  China.  It  was  introduced  by  the  Mongols,  who  held 
the  throne  of  China  for  a  century  (1264-1368),  and  during 


90  CHINESE  LITERATURE 

this  time  all  the  best  works  were  written  for  the  stage. 
Novels,  too,  were  not  indigenous  in  China,  but  are  said  to  have 
been  introduced  from  Central  Asia.  Both  novels  and  theat- 
rical plays  are  written  in  a  style  approaching  the  colloquial 
language  and  are,  therefore,  not  considered  to  form  part  of 
serious  Literature.  Nevertheless  novels  are  devoured  by 
the  people,  and  plays  are  performed  all  the  year  round. 


GREEK  LITERATURE 
By  Edward  Delavan  Perry,  Jay  Professor  of  Greek 

Among  the  many  apocryphal  stories  of  the  puzzled  school- 
boy one  of  the  most  delightful  tells  of  a  youth  who  was  asked 
to  give  a  brief  account  of  the  Ancient  Greeks.  He  wrote: 
"The  Ancient  Greeks  were  that  marvelous  nation  that  lived 
all  at  the  same  time,  and  all  in  the  same  place,  and  always 
thought  just  alike."  And  as  I  think  of  certain  widely  prevalent 
ideas  about  the  ancients  a  picture  comes  into  my  mind:  an 
engraving  entitled  "The  Age  of  Pericles,"  showing  the  great 
Athenian  haranguing  (no  other  word  will  do)  a  motley  group 
of  heroic  figures,  all  quite  undisturbed  by  the  hammering 
and  pounding  of  masons  and  carpenters  close  by,  who  are 
busily  engaged  in  erecting  the  Parthenon  and  the  Propylsea. 

We  hear  much  loose  talk  of  "The  Greek  Spirit"  and  "Greek 
Ideals";  but  if  we  ask  what  they  were,  we  often  find  concep- 
tions not  very  different  from  those  of  the  puzzled  schoolboy  and 
the  artist  of  "The  Age  of  Pericles."  And  really  it  is  no  won- 
der. The  oldest  literary  monuments  in  the  Greek  language, 
the  Homeric  Poems,  must,  it  seems  to  me,  have  assumed 
practically  their  present  form  by  800  e.g.  On  the  other  hand, 
about  the  latest  of  the  authors  who  preserved  or  reproduced  in 
imitation  the  truly  classical  spirit,  Lucian,  may  have  lived 
till  about  200  a.d.  That  is  a  stretch  of  a  thousand  years 
during  which  countless  minds  of  the  greatest  keenness  worked 
at  the  creation  and  perfection  of  new  types  of  literary  form, 
or  the  perpetuation  of  the  types  that  had  best  stood  the  test 

91 


92  GREEK  LITERATURE 

of  use.  But  those  thousand  years  by  no  means  represent  the 
whole  Hfe  of  ancient  Greek  Literature.  The  Homeric  Poems 
mark  the  close,  not  the  beginning,  of  a  long  literary  epoch. 
Their  language  is  not  entirely  homogeneous,  —  far  from  it. 
It  gives  us  no  true  picture  of  a  dialect  really  spoken  by  any 
community,  at  any  one  period  or  in  any  one  region;  it  con- 
tains elements  of  several  dialects,  fused  with  great  skill  into 
an  artistic  blend.  Indeed,  there  is  something  to  be  said  for 
the  famous  theory  of  Fick,  that  the  Homeric  Poems  were 
originally  composed  in  a  non-Ionic  (or  "^Eolic")  form  of 
Greek,  and  afterwards  transposed  (to  use  a  musical  term) 
into  a  new  form,  of  prevailingly  Ionic  type.  But  whatever 
may  be  the  genetic  history  of  this  wonderfully  rich  and  supple 
Homeric  language,  its  subsequent  career  is  fairly  well  known. 
For  hundreds  of  years  it  was  in  constant  use  as  a  conven- 
tional literary  language,  undoubtedly  committed  to  writing, 
yet  designed  chiefly  for  oral  use,  and  certainly  through  many 
generations  of  men  employed  principally  in  this  way.  Of  it 
Professor  Gilbert  Murray  truly  says:  "The  ordinary  au- 
diences must  have  understood  it  as  well  as,  for  instance,  our 
audiences  understand  the  authorized  version  of  the  Bible, 
though  the  differences  between  Jacobean  and  Victorian  Eng- 
hsh  are  utterly  trifling  compared  with  those  between  Homer 
and  the  prose  speech  of  the  earliest  Ionic  inscriptions.  And 
how  wonderfully  the  poets  themselves  knew  it  !  Even  under 
the  microscope  of  modern  philology  the  Epic  dialect  appears, 
in  the  main,  as  a  sort  of  organic  whole,  not  a  mere  mass  of 
incongruous  archaistic  forms.  And  this  language  has  been 
preserved  and  reconstructed  by  generations  of  men  who  never 
spoke  it  except  when  they  recited  poetry.  It  was  understood 
by  audiences  who  never  heard  it  spoken  except  when  they 
listened  to  poetry.  And  not  a  man  among  them  had  any 
knowledge  of  the  laws  of  language;  they  had  only  a  sense  of 
style." 

A  sense  of  style  !     In  the  last  analysis  an  utterly  inexplic- 


GREEK  LITERATURE  93 

able  possession,  a  Heaven-sent  gift,  capable  of  development 
but  hardly  to  be  produced  where  it  is  not  found  existing 
already.  It  was  the  incomparably  good  fortune  of  the  Greeks 
to  possess  that  sense,  as  it  is  the  heritage  of  the  Irish  people, 
and,  in  a  different  phase,  of  the  French,  in  the  modem  world. 
The  Greeks,  moreover,  possessed  the  knack  of  turning  it  to 
account,  of  following  its  promptings  and  heeding  its  warnings, 
in  endless  details  of  hfe.  "  Greek  dramas  and  Greek  temples," 
says  Professor  Percy  Gardner,  "are  parallel  embodiments  of 
the  Greek  spirit,  and  he  who  would  understand  that  spirit 
must  know  something  of  both.  Greek  history,  whether  of 
politics  or  colonization  or  trade  or  rehgion  or  literature  or  art, 
is  all  one;  and  every  branch  throws  back  light  on  the  other 
branches." 

This  sense  of  style  shows  itself  in  full  bloom  in  the  Homeric 
Poems,  and  has  entire  mastery  of  the  language  developed 
under  its  guidance.  It  is  already  a  chastened  and  sober  style 
when  it  first  appears  to  us,  for  all  its  intensity  and  variety; 
remarkably  free  from  extravagance  or  violence,  abhorring 
ugliness  and  clumsiness.  It  is  a  thoroughly  sophisticated 
style,  far  removed  from  a  mere  untutored  grace,  completely 
conscious  of  the  means  by  which  it  produces  its  effects.  It  is 
essentially  the  style  of  a  school.  At  its  previous  history  we 
can  only  guess;  but  we  may  safely  guess  that  generation  after 
generation  of  poets  worked  over  it,  choosing  elements  here 
and  there,  smoothing  down  any  roughness,  and  replacing 
unmanageable  forms  by  those  of  some  other  dialect  not  too 
different  to  seem  congruous.  The  day  has  gone  forever 
when  it  could  be  believed  that  such  poems,  in  such  a  style, 
represented  a  primitive  stage  of  Greek  civilization;  and  such 
terms  as  "The  Dawn  Age"  and  Mr.  Gladstone's  "Juventus 
Mundi  "  are  as  misleading  as  they  are  pretty.  The  "Dawn 
Age"  of  Greek  civilization  lies  far  back  of  any  period  that  we 
have  yet  been  able  to  reach,  or  even  to  approach. 

The  posterior  limit  of  ancient  Greek  Literature  is  hardly 


94  GREEK  LITERATURE 

less  difficult  to  set  with  accuracy.  The  current  of  Greek 
language  continued  to  flow  with  less  abrupt  turns,  and  far 
fewer  actual  interruptions,  than  was  the  fate  of  Latin;  and 
though  the  ancient  variety  of  dialects  disappeared  under  the 
dominating  influence  of  the  so-called  KOLvrj,  or  universal  dia- 
lect, developed  out  of  the  Attic,  this  universal  dialect  became 
and  remained  the  idiom  of  a  widely  spread  though  very  heter- 
ogeneous population.  As  the  medium  through  which  the 
gospel  of  Christianity  was  at  first  preached,  and  as  the  vehicle 
of  the  highest  civilization  thus  far  developed,  the  later  form 
of  Greek  gained  a  prestige  that  insured  its  persistence  through 
many  centuries  down  to  the  present  time.  This  persistence 
through  persecution  and  political  decay,  through  scattering 
and  isolation  of  conmiunities,  and  through  theological  dis- 
sensions of  unexampled  bitterness  is  one  of  the  most  striking 
phenomena  of  history. 

But  the  creative  power  of  the  Greeks  underwent  a  notable 
change  in  the  centuries  immediately  preceding  and  following 
the  birth  of  Christ.  The  vigorous  imagination,  the  keen 
power  of  analysis,  the  insatiable  thirst  for  knowledge,  the 
eagerness  to  work  out  new  forms,  gradually  disappeared. 
The  literary  treasures  of  past  centuries  were  already  over- 
whelmingly abundant,  so  that  preservation  became  of  prime 
importance,  and  creation  succeeded  best  when  it  took  the  form 
of  imitation  of  the  great  models.  This  is  why,  for  all  except 
the  professed  scholar,  the  history  of  ancient  Greek  Literature 
is  as  good  as  ended  with  Lucian.  The  literature  of  Byzantium 
or  Constantinople  is  like  that  of  another  people,  though  the 
language  is  nearly  the  same  as  before.  The  sense  of  style  is 
not  indeed  dead;  the  ancient  models  were  too  good  to  lose 
their  usefulness  or  attractiveness ;  but  external  conditions  are 
altogether  different.  A  new  faith,  with  an  authoritative 
creed  resting  on  revelation,  with  an  organized  and  central- 
ized hierarchy,  and  a  political  world  of  absolutism,  contrast 
sharply  with  the  extremely  elastic  religious  belief  and  prac- 


GREEK  LITERATURE  95 

tices  and  the  kaleidoscopic  variety  of  constitutions  and  states 
prevailing  down  to  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great.  The 
pious  Fathers  of  the  Church  saw  in  the  intensely  human 
deities  of  their  ancestors  but  devils  and  demons  and  fallen 
angels  still  dangerous  to  the  soul  of  the  good  Christian.  Yet 
a  fortunate  tolerance  and  an  admiration,  sometimes  outspoken, 
sometimes  no  doubt  prudently  concealed,  for  the  great  works 
of  antiquity,  led  to  the  preservation  and  copying  of  these. 

With  very  few  exceptions,  almost  no  existing  Mss.  of  an- 
cient Greek  classical  works  were  written  before  900  a.d. 
There  is  one  large  fragment  of  papyrus  in  Berlin,  which  may 
have  been  written  as  early  as  330  e.g.;  it  contains  a  portion 
of  the  "Persians"  of  Timotheus,  a  poet  who  died  in  357  b.c. 
The  ''Persians"  was  probably  composed  about  400  b.c, 
so  that  the  Ms.  may  come  within  seventy  years  or  so  of  the 
first  publication  of  the  poem;  but  even  this  degree  of  ap- 
proach is  unique.  Of  Bacchyhdes  we  have  since  1897  a  papy- 
rus Ms.  that  may  have  been  written  within  450  years  after 
the  poet's  death.  In  almost  every  case  many  hundreds  of 
years  lie  between  the  original  composition  of  a  classical  Greek 
work  that  has  come  down  to  us  in  its  entirety  and  the  actual 
writing  of  the  oldest  Ms.  in  which  it  is  preserved.  In  the  case 
of  Euripides,  for  instance,  not  less  than  1300  years  intervene. 
The  actual  production  of  such  Mss.  as  we  have  is  due  chiefly 
to  the  patience  and  devotion  of  learned  monks  in  the  monas- 
teries of  Eastern  Mediterranean  and  ^gean  countries. 

With  the  Mss.,  however,  of  ancient  Greek  authors  fortune 
has  played  some  strange  pranks.  Out  of  the  hmidreds  of 
tragedies  produced  at  Athens  between  500  and  400  b.c.  only 
thirty-two  have  come  down  to  us:  seven  of  iEschylus,  seven 
of  Sophocles,  and  eighteen  of  Euripides.  But  -lEschylus  is 
known  to  have  written  at  least  eighty  plays,  Sophocles  over 
a  hundred,  Euripides  over  ninety.  Of  what  must  have  been 
a  vast  mass  of  early  heroic  epic  poetry  only  the  lUad  and  the 
Odyssey  survive,  no  doubt  the  noblest  of  the  whole  body  of 


96  GREEK   LITERATURE 

epic  poems,  yet  differing  only  in  degree  of  excellence,  not  in 
kind,  from  the  others.  The  field  of  Greek  lyric  poetry  is  like 
the  surface  of  the  Acropohs  at  Athens  as  one  sees  it  to-day, 
a  bewildering  accumulation  of  fragments,  many  of  exceeding 
beauty,  but  broken  and  battered,  sometimes  almost  beyond  rec- 
ognition. Greek  lyric  is  known  to  us  nowadays  chiefly  through 
quotation  in  later  Greek  writers;  quotation  either  in  the  body 
of  an  independent  work  for  illustration  or  argument  (so,  for 
example,  the  longest  fragment  of  Simonides's  poetry  that  exists 
is  quoted  piecemeal  in  the  * '  Protagoras ' '  of  Plato,  and  discussed 
and  pulled  to  pieces  by  the  persons  of  the  dialogue),  or  in 
collections  of  "Elegant  Extracts,"  preserved  without  explana- 
tory framing,  like  jewels  without  setting.  From  this  state- 
ment Pindar  and  Bacchylides  must  be  excepted;  we  have 
many  Mss.  of  Pindar,  and  the  one  of  BacchyUdes  just  now 
referred  to.  The  whole  body  of  historical  works  of  the  fourth 
century  B.C.,  and  the  entire  Middle  and  New  Comedy,  has 
as  good  as  perished  except  in  so  far  as  the  latter  has  survived 
in  the  "adaptations"  of  Plautus  and  Terence;  and  in  the 
works  of  Aristotle  are  huge  gaps.  One  particularly  valuable 
fragment  of  Aristotle  (not  universally  acknowledged  as 
genuine),  containing  the  greater  part  of  his  "Constitution  of 
Athens,"  was  found  in  1890,  and  it  contains  a  number  of 
previously  unlaiown  verses  by  Solon.  Of  Plato,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  seem  to  have  all  that  he  ever  published,  in  fact 
more,  as  some  of  the  extant  dialogues  ascribed  to  him  are 
certainly  spurious. 

When  so  much  is  lacking  from  the  Literature  once  in  exist- 
ence it  is  well  to  be  cautious  in  making  sweeping  statements 
about  it.  The  discovery  of  a  piece  of  papyrus  in  an  Egyptian 
tomb  may  suddenly  upset  many  carefully  formed  theories. 
I  remember  well  the  passionate  ardor  with  which  the  professor 
of  Greek  archjeology  at  Leipsic  many  years  ago  used  to  argue 
against  the  theory,  then  beginning  to  be  seriously  maintained, 
that  Greek  statuary  of  the  best  period  was  conmionly  painted. 


GREEK  LITERATURE  97 

He  proved  to  his  own  complete  satisfaction,  and  I  must  say- 
to  ours),  too,  for  he  was  very  eloquent  and  had  a  wonderful 
gift  of  seeing  only  one  side  of  a  question,  that  the  painting 
of  marble  statues  was  utterly  unthinkable.  Yet  within  a 
very  few  years  the  soil  of  Greece  yielded  to  the  spade  of  the 
archaeologist  statue  after  statue  most  elaborately  and  care- 
fully painted  ! 

However,  even  after  all  the  vast  losses  from  the  once  ex- 
isting body  of  Greek  Literature,  enough  remains  to  reveal  to 
us  the  range  and  power  and  originality  of  the  Greek  genius. 
We  are  still  far  from  understanding  all  that  we  have  of  that 
Literature;  and  what  has  been  interpreted  to  one  generation 
of  moderns  needs  reinterpretation  to  the  next,  for  the  point 
of  view  inevitably  shifts  with  the  lapse  of  years.  Even  the 
individual  scholar  finds,  in  his  old  age,  a  meaning  and  a  mes- 
sage in  his  beloved  authors  which  he  had  failed  to  find,  or  had 
viewed  with  half-seeing  eyes,  in  his  youth.  There  is  hardly 
an  ancient  Greek  author  whose  works,  carefully  and  thor- 
oughly studied,  will  not  throw  light  upon  those  of  all  other 
Greek  authors.  Moreover,  within  the  last  thirty  years  such 
advances  have  been  made  in  archaeology  and  anthropology  that 
the  whole  problem  of  comprehending  the  vast  structure  of  an- 
cient civilization,  Greek  as  well  as  Oriental,  has  been  prac- 
tically restated,  and  wholly  new  factors  have  entered  into  the 
equation.  Greek  Literature  is  too  completely  an  outgrowth 
of  Greek  life  to  be  intelligible  except  as  that  life  is  intelligible; 
and  for  the  comprehension  of  that  life  new  helps  are  furnished 
on  every  side,  new  sources  of  knowledge  are  available  to  the 
student  of  to-day  of  which  our  fathers  never  dreamed.  The 
Greek-speaking  peoples,  formerly  thought  of  as  a  pure  and 
homogeneous  race,  are  now  seen  to  have  been  rather  of  ex- 
tremely mixed  parentage,  held  together  in  a  very  precarious 
union  perhaps  quite  as  much  by  pressure  from  without  as  by 
natural  and  mutual  attraction.  Greek  civilization  we  might 
describe  as  a  new  and  splendid  pattern  worked  upon  a  back- 


98  GREEK   LITERATURE 

ground  of  older  and  quite  different  forms  of  culture,  and  the 
old  forms  often  show  through  and  between  the  lines  of  the 
later  design.  "Purity  of  race"  is  a  phrase  that  is  anthropo- 
logically discredited:   "Greek  is  as  Greek  does." 

It  will  be  best,  considering  the  extent  and  variety  of  this 
Greek  Literature  to  which  I  am  directing  your  attention,  to 
choose  a  few  of  its  chief  characteristics,  as  they  appear  to  me, 
for  closer  examination. 

The  first  characteristic  is  that  of  extreme  variety.  Adopt- 
ing the  traditional  division  into  poetical  and  prose  Literature, 
we  find  that  the  Greeks  gave  artistic  development  succes- 
sively to  epic  poetry  both  heroic  (Homeric  Poems)  and  didactic 
(Hesiod) ;  to  philosophical  poetry,  in  which  the  external  form 
is  that  of  the  epic,  that  is,  the  hexameter;  to  elegiac  and 
iambic  poetry,  both  named  from  the  form  of  verse,  not  from 
the  subject-matter  or  mode  of  treatment;  to  a  very  elaborate 
form  of  choral  lyric,  employed  at  festivals  and  on  other  public 
occasions,  and  by  the  side  of  this  to  a  purely  personal,  subjec- 
tive lyric,  in  a  form  admirably  suited  to  the  expression  of  in- 
tense emotion;  then  to  dramatic  poetry,  both  tragic  and  comic 
(there  is  no  prose  drama  in  ancient  Greek  Literature  that  has 
survived,  though  the  famous  "mimes"  of  Sophron  would  doubt- 
less fall  under  that  head);  and  to  bucolic  or  pastoral  poetry  of 
Theocritus  and  his  school,  the  last  independent  form  of  poetry 
to  be  cultivated  among  ancient  Greeks. 

Turning  to  prose,  in  every  sense  a  secondary  form  of  litera- 
ture, we  may  follow  the  development  in  succession  of  philo- 
sophical, historical,  and  oratorical  prose.  Out  of  the  fusion  of 
these  originally  separate  forms  issues  what  may  well  be  called 
the  universal  prose  style  —  of  course  showing  many  varia- 
tions and  modifications  at  the  hands  of  individual  writers  — 
which  becomes  the  pattern  for  the  prose  of  the  whole  Western 
world. 

The  origination  and  development  of  all  these  forms  of 


GREEK   LITERATURE  99 

literary  expression  were  not  the  achievement  of  the  Greek- 
speaking  people  as  a  whole,  still  less  of  any  one  part  of  them. 
We  come  now  to  one  of  the  most  notable  phenomena  in  literary 
history:  the  traditional  divergence  of  dialect  between  the 
different  branches  of  Greek  Literature.  In  the  glory  of  hav- 
ing assisted  to  perfect  the  many  forms  of  literary  Greek  many 
different  communities  or  "tribes" — to  use  a  conventional 
but  very  misleading  term  —  had  a  share.  These  various 
communities  spoke  widely  different  forms  of  Greek,  some  of 
which  are  only  very  imperfectly  known  to  us,  whether  from 
scanty  literary  remains,  or  a  few  unimportant  and  half-deci- 
pherable inscriptions,  or  the  incomplete  accounts  given  by 
grammarians  and  lexicographers  of  Alexandrian  and  Roman 
times.  The  speech  of  outlying  communities  hke  iEtolians, 
Macedonians,  many  of  the  Cretan  towns,  and  the  like  must 
have  been  nearly  unintelligible  to  the  more  highly  civilized 
and  refined  people  of  the  central  cities;  even  the  dialect  of 
Elis,  the  region  of  Olympia,  where  thousands  upon  thousands 
of  Greek-speaking  people  congregated  every  four  years 
throughout  many  centuries,  was  always  regarded  as  particu- 
larly crabbed  and  difficult.  A  modern  parallel  is  the  case 
of  Oberammergau,  in  the  Bavarian  Highlands,  whither  the 
decennial  Passion  Play  brings  myriads  of  Germans  to  whom 
the  untempered  speech  of  that  region  is  as  strange  as  Dutch 
or  Flemish. 

This  literary  development  by  regions  or  localities  —  I  in- 
tentionally avoid  the  word  "tribes"  —  had  a  striking  result: 
a  certain  "dialect"  became  so  to  speak  obligatory  for  each  of 
the  great  classes  of  Literature.  That  is  to  say,  when  a  particu- 
lar branch  of  Greek-speaking  people  gave  typical  develop- 
ment to  a  particular  species  of  Literature,  the  dialect  in  use 
among  them,  their  vernacular,  served  as  the  material  out  of 
which  a  linguistic  vehicle  of  expression  for  that  form  of  Litera- 
ture was  wrought.  Furthermore  (and  this  is  the  point  to  be 
chiefly  remembered),  that  vehicle,  thus  created,  was  adopted 


100  GREEK   LITERATURE 

by  Greeks  of  other  regions  and  other  vernaculars  when  they 
composed  works  of  a  similar  kind.  For  example,  the  elabo- 
rate and  artificial  epic  dialect  seems  to  have  received  its  final 
form  among  Ionian  Greeks  of  Asia  Minor;  but  in  succeed- 
ing ages  whoever  composed  epic  poetry,  whatever  might  be 
his  native  dialect,  used  as  a  matter  of  course  this  same  epic 
dialect,  so  far  as  he  had  mastered  it.  So,  again,  the  language 
of  choral  lyric,  conventionally  a  sort  of  fusion  of  several  non- 
Ionic  dialects,  but  chiefly  Doric,  was  employed  as  well  by  the 
Ionic-speaking  Simonides  and  Bacchylides  as  by  the  natu- 
ralized Lacedemonian  Alcman  and  the  Boeotian  Pindar.  A  par- 
tial exception  to  this  rule  is  seen  in  the  case  of  the  Lesbian 
dialect  employed  by  Alcseus  and  Sappho,  which  hardly 
appears  again  in  Greek  Literature;  partly  because  that  style 
of  poetry  went  out  of  fashion,  partly,  doubtless,  because  the 
dialect  was  so  distinctively  and  peculiarly  local  that  it  was  too 
difficult  of  acquisition,  and  not  rich  enough  for  general  use  in 
the  expression  of  a  wider  range  of  ideas. 

A  curious  literary  enthusiasm,  a  harmless  but  barren 
Schwdrmerei,  prompted  a  certain  bellettristic  lady  of  Ha- 
drian's court,  over  seven  hundred  years  after  the  time  of 
Sappho,  to  compose  four  poems  in  an  imitation  of  the 
Sapphic  dialect,  on  the  occasion  of  Hadrian's  visit  to 
Egypt  in  the  year  130  a.d.  These  poems  are  still  to  be 
seen,  engraved  on  the  colossal  statue  of  Memnon  in  Egyp- 
tian Thebes.  Balbilla  —  that  was  the  ambitious  lady's 
name  —  was  but  moderately  successful  with  her  Lesbian 
dialect,  and  wisely  held  aloof  from  the  more  difficult 
Lesbian  meters. 

The  various  local  dialects,  however,  thus  taken  for  use  as 
literary  mediums,  underwent  many  modifications.  They  were 
most  severely  pruned  and  trimmed,  and  on  the  other  hand 
em-iched  by  borrowings  from  other  dialects  of  Greek.  It  must 
be  remembered  that  the  literary  language  is  essentially  an 
artificial  language.     The  vernaculars  are  the  real  living  Ian- 


GREEK   LITERATURE  101 

guage,  not  mere  corruptions  of  the  literary  speech.  But  a  mere 
vernacular  tongue  is  rarely  suited  to  serious  literary  production; 
for  one  reason,  because  it  is  of  very  limited  range.  At  an 
early  period  in  their  literary  history  the  Greeks  felt  this  to  be 
true.  They  developed  not  one  indeed  but  several  literary 
languages.  It  is  interesting  and  instructive  to  compare  the 
language  of  Pindar  with  that  of  his  countrywoman  and  elder 
contemporary,  Corinna,  so  far  as  the  latter  is  known  and  ac- 
cessible from  a  few  short  fragments.  Corinna's  language  is  of 
an  extreme  dialectal  type,  and  must  have  been  very  difficult 
to  Greeks  not  already  acquainted  with  the  Boeotian  dialect; 
while  Pindar  employs  a  vocabulary  and  forms  which  can  have 
offered  but  little  trouble  to  any  educated  Greek,  difficult  as 
his  train  of  thought  must  often  have  been  to  follow. 

The  several  principal  forms  of  Greek  Literature,  then,  grew 
up  in  the  environment  of  different  parts  of  the  Greek-speaking 
world,  and  preserved  to  the  last  many  linguistic  peculiarities 
of  their  originators.  To  the  lonians  belongs  the  chief  share 
of  the  glory  of  having  put  the  Homeric  Poems  into  their  final 
shape,  of  developing  a  somewhat  different  vocabulary  and 
inflection  for  use  in  the  elegiac  and  iambic  poetry,  and  of  work- 
ing out  for  the  first  time,  not  only  in  the  history  of  Greek  Lit- 
erature but  so  far  as  we  know  in  the  history  of  Literature  at 
all,  a  really  artistic  prose  style.  What  Greek  prose  might 
have  continued  to  be  but  for  the  artistic  feeling  of  Ionian 
writers,  we  may  see  from  the  clumsy,  disjointed  deliverances 
of  some  of  the  earlier  philosophers,  as  preserved  to  us  in  de- 
tached quotations  by  later  authors.  This  Ionic  prose  was 
eclipsed  by  the  greater  Attic  style,  but  not  before  it  had  found 
in  the  incomparable  Herodotus  an  exponent  whose  narrative 
exerts  an  undying  charm. 

The  choral  lyric,  or  poetry  designed  to  be  sung  at  occasions 
of  public  ceremony  or  worship,  seems  to  have  been  cultivated 
most  successfully  as  a  whole  among  Dorian  communities,  and 
its  characteristics  are  in  the  main  those  traditionally  ascribed 


102  GREEK  LITERATURE 

to  Dorian  Greeks:  sobriety,  stateliness,  dignity.  Yet  the 
two  greatest  names  in  Greek  choral  lyric  are  those  of  a  Boeo- 
tian and  an  Ionian,  of  Pindar  and  Simonides;  and  the  lan- 
guage of  choral  lyric  is  not  really  Dorian  any  more  than  it  is 
iEolian.  The  Dorian  character  comes  out  most  plainly  in  the 
meters  employed,  the  most  stately  to  be  found  anywhere  in 
Greek  poetry.  A  striking  illustration  of  this  persistence  of 
literary  dialect  is  afforded  by  the  Attic  drama.  In  Greek 
tragedy,  as  is  of  course  well  known,  certain  interludes  or 
entr'actes  were  sung  by  a  trained  chorus  who  executed  a  sort  of 
pantomimic  dance  in  accompaniment.  The  language  of  these 
interludes  differs  from  that  of  the  rest  of  the  play  by  admitting 
certain  forms  of  non-Attic  type,  but  only  in  passages  intended 
to  be  sung  ;  a  sort  of  reminiscence  of  an  earlier  period  when 
the  drama  consisted  of  little  else  than  a  series  of  choral  odes. 
The  so-called  "Doric  forms"  of  certain  words,  as  used  in  these 
odes  or  interludes,  are  in  reality  not  specifically  Doric  at  all. 
The  drama  is  essentially  an  Attic  product.  Very  possibly 
the  beginnings  of  dramatic  development  are  due  to  non-Attic 
Hellenes,  but  the  Attic  people,  the  Athenians,  succeeded  in 
making  the  drama  so  completely  their  own  that  their  claim 
to  inventorship  is  practically  undisputed.  In  fact,  from  about 
500  B.C.  onward,  Athens  often  plays  the  role  of  appropriator 
of  other  states'  goods,  and  gets  much  credit  for  introducing, 
as  new,  ideas  which  had  really  been  first  broached  elsewhere. 
So  with  the  comic  drama:  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that 
it  was  composed  and  performed  among  certain  Dorian  peoples, 
particularly  at  Megara  and  in  Sicily,  long  before  it  was  taken 
up  at  Athens;  but  the  skill  and  cleverness  of  Athenian  writers, 
and  the  transcendent  genius  of  an  Aristophanes,  aided  by  the 
freedom  of  speech  which  was  far  greater  at  Athens  than  else- 
where, secured  to  Athens  the  monopoly,  one  might  almost  say, 
of  this  form  of  drama.  Thus  it  comes  about  that  the  history 
of  Greek  drama  is  the  history  of  Athenian  drama.  So  again 
with  oratory,  a  point  to  which  I  shall  revert  presently.     And 


GREEK  LITERATURE  103 

it  is  worth  while  to  remember  that  the  population  of  Attica 
was  probably  one  of  the  most  mixed  in  Greece,  and  the  dialect 
better  suited  than  any  other  to  be  the  medium  of  dramatic  and 
prose  Literatme,  as  uniting  in  itself  elements  of  many  others. 
Of  all  the  Greek  dialects  known  to  us  the  Ionic-Attic  group 
shows  the  fewest  archaic  forms. 

After  Athens  had  thus  gained  the  spiritual  leadership  of 
Greece  no  important  new  species  of  poetry  seems  to  have  been 
developed,  though  old  forms  underwent  some  important 
modifications,  until  after  300  B.C.,  when  Theocritus,  of  whose 
life  singularly  little  is  knowTi,  introduced  a  new  type,  the 
bucolic  or  pastoral  poetr3^  A  Sicilian  by  birth,  he  lived  on 
the  island  of  Cos  and  at  Alexandria.  With  wonderful  skill 
he  brought  into  Literature  the  pastoral  motives  of  his  native 
country,  idealizing  the  goatherds  and  shepherds  into  a  form 
in  which  they  became  presentable  at  court,  yet  leaving  them 
their  depth  and  intensity  of  emotion  and  in  the  main  their 
broad  and  homely  dialect.  The  combination  of  this  dialect 
with  the  hexameter  verse,  which  had  been  hitherto  almost 
exclusively  Ionic  in  form,  was  in  itself  a  notable  contribution 
to  literary  art. 


As  the  second  salient  characteristic  of  Greek  Literature  I 
would  posit  its  particularly  close  and  intimate  connection, 
down  to  about  300  B.C.,  with  the  everyday  life  of  the  Greeks 
themselves.  Mr.  R.  R.  Marett,  in  his  preface  to  a  collection 
of  very  valuable  lectures  delivered  in  1908,  at  Oxford,  en- 
titled ''Anthropology  and  the  Classics,"  says:  "To  use  the 
language  of  biology,  whereas  Greek  Literature  is  congenital, 
Roman  Literature  is  in  large  part  acquired."  No  right  under- 
standing of  either  substance  or  form  of  Greek  Literature  is 
possible  to  one  who  regards  it  in  the  light  of  modern  literatures, 
that  is,  views  it  as  consisting  chiefly  of  works  composed  to  be 
read  to  oneself.     On  the  contrary,  Greek  prose-writer  and 


104  GREEK  LITERATURE 

Greek  poet  alike  had  in  mind  an  audience,  persons  who  Hstened; 
their  appeal  to  the  intelligence  of  those  whose  attention  and 
approval  they  sought  was  made  chiefly  through  spoken  sounds, 
not  directly  through  written  symbols.  Even  in  the  time  of  Plato 
manuscripts  of  literary  works  were  not  abundant,  and  the 
possessor  of  one  would  ordinarily  read  it  aloud  to  a  circle  of 
friends;  nay,  when  reading  to  himself  a  Greek  of  Plato's  time 
is  likely  to  have  read  aloud.  The  poet,  indeed,  originally 
went  farther  than  the  prose-writer  in  his  appeal  to  the  ear; 
he  made  it  not  only  through  words  in  metrical  arrangement, 
but  largely  through  musical  melody  as  well.  The  epic  poet, 
composing  in  the  long  and  stately  hexameter;  the  elegiac  poet, 
using  alternately  the  hexameter  and  the  verse  misnamed 
"pentameter";  and  the  iambographer,  using  the  trimeter,  or 
verse  of  normally  twelve  syllables  —  these  three  seem  to  have 
designed  their  verses  to  be  chanted  or  intoned  rather  than 
sung;  but  the  whole  character  of  this  versification  points  to  a 
mode  of  delivery  very  different  from  that  of  the  usual  spoken 
language.  The  verses  of  the  "  lyric  "  or,  to  speak  somewhat 
more  technically,  of  the  ^'  melic  "  poets,  were  undoubtedly 
always  sung  to  melodies  in  which  the  length  of  each  note  was 
accurately  determined  by  the  time-value  of  each  syllable  as 
used  in  actual  speech.  Our  modern  forms  of  verse  seem  to  me 
to  give  an  extremely  false  idea  of  the  ancient  meters.  Un- 
fortunately we  cannot,  with  our  present  fragmentary  knowl- 
edge of  ancient  music,  safely  go  beyond  this  negative  state- 
ment. If  we  had  but  one  fairly  good  phonographic  record 
of  an  ancient  Greek  song,  how  much  better  off  we  might  be 
than  we  are  with  several  treatises  that  have  come  down  to  us 
from  ancient  times  on  music  and  meters  ! 

The  successive  types  of  Greek  Literature  reflect  faithfully 
the  external  conditions  out  of  which  they  sprang.  In  some 
few  cases  we  are  fortunately  able  to  trace  the  process  of  growth 
from  almost  the  beginning  to  the  full  bloom;  but  not  so  in  the 
earlier  types.     If  we  could  follow  out  the  earlier  stages  we 


GREEK  LITERATURE  105 

should,  I  believe,  find  in  the  Literature  what  has  been  found 
so  often  in  the  history  of  Greek  art:  a  working-out  of  popular 
models  previously  long  current  in  simpler  forms.  Unfortu- 
nately, the  phrase  "mushroom  growth"  has  acquired  a  by- 
meaning  which  makes  it  nearly  incapable  of  use  in  a  good 
sense;  yet  something  very  like  that  process  must  have  gone 
on  in  the  earlier  centuries  of  Greek  Literature,  as  in  many 
other  literatures.  As  the  spawn  of  the  fungi  permeates  the 
soil  in  almost  invisible  filaments,  to  be  suddenly  roused  to 
fertility  by  favoring  conditions  of  moisture  and  atmosphere, 
so  the  .subtle  growths  of  popular  songs  and  tales  spring  up 
into  brilliant  productiveness  under  the  forcing  of  the  master 
mind. 

The  earliest  stage  of  Greek  society  revealed  by  the  archae- 
ologist is  plainly  of  an  aristocratic  type.  Chieftains  great 
and  small  live  in  castles  that  are  at  once  the  palaces  and  the 
sanctuaries,  and  often  the  strongholds  and  places  of  refuge,  of 
the  various  communities.  The  Homeric  Poems  display  a  con- 
dition of  society  in  which  the  rule  of  the  nobles  and  princes 
is  nearly  absolute,  though  tempered  by  the  advice  of  coun- 
selors, smaller  chieftains,  lesser  nobles;  but  the  man  of  low 
station  in  life  hardly  counts  in  war,  except  as  rower  of  ships 
and  desultory  fighter  in  the  field,  and  in  peace  not  at  all. 
Not  only  in  the  rare  intervals  of  peace  —  petty  warfare  must 
have  been  nearly  incessant  —  but  in  camp,  bards  sing  the 
KXca  dvBpw,  the  glory  of  men,  that  is,  their  prowess  in  war, 
their  strength,  their  cunning.  But  it  is  only  the  nobles  that 
are  thus  glorified.  The  poems  embodying  these  praises  are  of 
singularly  dignified  and  stately  form,  in  the  sonorous  dactylic 
hexameter  verse,  a  verse  of  simple  structure,  yet  susceptible  of 
manifold  modulation.  The  previous  history  of  the  hexameter 
is  still  unknown,  and  probably  will  remain  so;  but  we  may 
reasonably  consider  it  a  development  out  of  simpler  forms 
which  gave  rise  on  the  one  hand,  by  mere  coupling,  to  the 
"pentameter,"  on  the  other,  by  coupling  and  some  modifi- 


106  GREEK   LITERATURE 

cation,  to  the  "hexameter."  The  style  is  deliberate  and 
circumstantial,  in  no  haste  to  finish  its  descriptions;  the 
hearers  could  sit  all  night  if  necessary,  feasting  and  listening 
to  the  song  and  chant  of  the  bard.  Nor  is  only  prowess  in 
arms  extolled;  the  power  of  eloquent  speech  is  praised  and 
admirably  exemplified.  Nestor  and  Odysseus  are  real  orators 
from  whose  utterances  one  might  gather  many  an  example  to 
illustrate  principles  of  style  laid  down  by  rhetoricians  of  later 
centuries.  Everjrthing  is  astonishingly  human,  the  gods  most 
of  all ;  indeed,  they  are  rather  a  species  of  superman,  but  with 
the  added  advantages  of  distant  sight,  and  instantaneous  loco- 
motion, and  power  of  sudden  disappearance.  They  are  es- 
sentially Greek  nobles  projected  upon  the  sky.  The  Greek 
chieftains  portrayed  by  Homer  were  most  interested,  perhaps 
exclusively  so,  in  tales  of  the  doings  of  their  own  kind.  The 
persistence  into  historical  times  of  such  a  type  of  civilization 
may  be  observed  in  Thessaly,  where  political  power  seems  to 
have  been  monopolized  by  a  few  great  clans. 

The  other  side  of  the  picture  is  drawn  by  Hesiod,  of  whose 
personality  extremely  little  was  known  by  the  Greeks  of  his- 
torical times.  To  judge  from  that  little,  he  was  a  man  of 
humble  origin,  born  in  Boeotia  as  the  son  of  an  immigrant 
from  Asia  Minor.  In  his  ''Works  and  Days"  we  are  in- 
troduced to  the  man  of  the  people,  the  weary  toiler  for  his  daily 
bread,  whose  sordidness,  curious  canniness,  and  boundless 
superstition  are  all  most  strikingly  revealed.  The  hexam- 
eter is  still  employed,  and  seems  often  too  stately  a  medium 
of  expression  for  the  subject-matter;  but  probably  it  was  still 
the  only  form  of  verse  sufficiently  developed  to  be  worth 
considering. 

The  eighth  century  before  Christ,  in  which  Hesiod  may 
well  have  lived,  was  a  time  of  singular  unrest  in  the  Greek 
world.  Everywhere  the  aristocratic  form  of  community  was 
disappearing,  and  societies  of  more  democratic  type  coming 
into  existence,  through  the  middle  stage  of  the  tyranny,  a 


GREEK  LITERATURE  107 

form  of  state  in  which  some  individual,  usually  of  noble  birth, 
gained  such  ascendancy  over  the  commoners  that  he  was  able 
to  proclaim  himself  sole  ruler,  and  often  to  maintain  himself 
in  power  for  many  years.  This  century  is  also  preeminently 
the  period  of  colonization,  when  nearly  every  Greek  town  of 
importance,  torn  by  civil  dissensions  (which  regularly  ended 
with  the  actual  expulsion  of  the  defeated  party)  and  perhaps 
overpopulated  for  the  small  extent  of  territory  which  it  con- 
trolled, established  settlements  in  distant  parts  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean and  the  Black  Sea,  each  of  them  a  new  center  of  Greek 
life  and  customs. 

In  such  surroundings  the  man  who  had  something  to  say, 
and  could  say  it  well,  came  to  the  front.  The  noble  still  had 
many  advantages  over  the  meaner  man.  But  the  humble 
man  was  getting  his  opportunity;  he  had  at  least  the  privi- 
lege of  being  heard,  and  might  on  occasion  even  turn  the  issue. 
How  was  such  a  man,  or  any  man  for  that  matter,  to  win  the 
attention  of  his  fellow-men  ?  There  were  no  newspapers  for 
him  to  write  to,  no  body  of  readers  to  be  reached  by  cheap 
editions  of  campaign  documents.  In  fact,  the  total  number 
whom  he  needed  to  influence  cannot  have  been,  according  to 
our  ideas,  very  great;  even  at  Athens,  most  democratic  of 
Greek  states,  when  the  total  population,  including  all  Attica, 
must  have  been  six  to  seven  hundred  thousand,  the  number  of 
voters  was  not  over  thirty  thousand.  Those  whom  he  wished 
to  influence  had  to  be  reached  by  the  spoken  word.  In  public 
assemblies  every  one  who  gained  a  hearing  might  of  course 
hold  forth  with  such  native  eloquence  as  he  possessed;  but 
how  could  he  be  sure  that  his  words  would  be  remembered  ? 
There  was  a  better  way:  to  put  his  ideas  into  a  form  easily 
memorized,  and  thus  adapted  to  repetition,  and  suitable  to  be 
passed  along  from  man  to  man.  Two  forms  were  chosen  in 
preference  to  others :  the  elegiac  distich,  and  the  iambic  trim- 
eter. Both  are  forms  suited  to  compact  and  forcible  ex- 
pression.     The    iambic   trimeter,   in  particular,   approaches 


108  GREEK  LITERATURE 

nearer  than  any  other  form  of  verse,  according  to  ancient 
authorities,  to  the  actual  spoken  language;  it  lends  itself 
particularly  to  satire  and  invective,  which  must  have  played 
a  large  part  in  the  public  speaking  of  those  days.  The  most 
notable  figure  in  the  earlier  part  of  this  period  is  Archilochus, 
a  native  of  the  island  of  Paros,  whose  life  was  probably  en- 
tirely included  within  the  limits  of  the  seventh  century  B.C. 
The  fragments  of  his  poems  show  a  mind  of  extraordinary 
virility  and  versatility,  unmatched  in  vituperation,  yet  keenly 
alive  to  the  joys  and  graces  of  life,  and  (what  chiefly  con- 
cerns us  here)  with  a  perfect  mastery  of  the  technique  of  ver- 
sification. Not  even  Sappho  plays  more  varied  melodies 
upon  her  lyre.  In  particular,  his  handling  of  the  iambic 
measures  shows  the  skill  of  thorough  control  of  his  art.  The 
perfection  of  his  trimeters  makes  it  likely  that  many  poets 
before  him  had  helped  develop  this  measure,  or  at  least  that  it 
had  already  a  long  history  in  popular  use,  simultaneously  with 
the  more  dignified  and  splendid  dactylic  hexameter.  The 
hexameter,  indeed,  was  put  to  many  more  uses  than  merely 
for  epic  poetry.  Hesiod's  use  of  it  for  the  homely  "Husband- 
man's Calendar"  has  already  been  mentioned.  There  was  as 
yet  no  art  of  composing  good  prose,  prose  that  could  stand 
comparison  with  the  highly  developed  poetical  forms.  These 
forms  in  fact  took  the  place  later  occupied  by  prose;  the 
relation  which  they  bore  to  the  more  elaborate  and  compli- 
cated forms  of  verse,  the  "lyric  meters,"  was  practically  the 
same  as  that  of  prose  to  poetry  as  a  whole.  Set,  formal  ex- 
pression was  still  only  possible  in  verse;  and  verse  was  really 
better  suited  to  the  needs  of  those  times  than  prose. 

It  would  be  worth  while,  if  time  and  your  patience  allowed, 
to  point  out  the  other  fields  in  which  the  flowers  of  Literature 
seem  indigenous  to  the  soil.  It  is  everywhere  as  though  we 
were  viewing  a  garden  the  flowers  in  which  were  only  better 
bred  specimens  of  the  sorts  to  be  found  all  about,  outside  the 
wall.     One  might  show,  for  example,  how  the  growing  splendor 


GREEK   LITERATURE  109 

of  the  great  national  games  at  Olympia,  Delphi,  and  elsewhere 
made  a  victory  at  one  of  them  so  glorious  that  no  ceremonies 
were  too  elaborate  for  the  celebration  of  it,  and  how,  some- 
time before  500  b.c,  the  fashion  arose  among  those  who  could 
pay  handsomely  of  ordering  a  triumphal  ode  from  some 
famous  poet,  to  be  sung  by  a  trained  chorus  at  the  formal 
celebration.  The  fashion  seems  not  to  have  lasted  more  than 
a  hundred  years,  if  as  long  as  that;  but  that  hundred  years 
includes  Simonides  and  Pindar  and  Bacchylides,  besides  lesser 
lights  of  whom  we  know  but  little.  How,  again,  the  whole 
history  of  the  tragic  drama  falls  between  about  550  and  375  B.C., 
only  a  hundred  and  seventy-five  years  or  so;  how  the  worship 
of  Dionysus  or  Bacchus,  which  had  spread  rapidly  among 
Greek  peoples,  had  been  made  one  of  the  most  important 
features  of  the  state  religion  at  Athens,  and  how,  after  the 
impulse  given  by  the  famous  Thespis,  the  ruder  forms  of 
dramatic  art,  which  must  have  been  practised  for  centuries 
before  his  time,  were  transformed  into  the  lofty  and  austere 
beauty  of  ^schylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides;  how  the 
satire  of  Archilochus  and  others  found  its  real  successor  in 
comedy  as  developed  at  Athens  —  a  vehicle  more  terribly 
effective  than  even  the  savage  iambics  could  be,  when  the 
stinging  words  were  reenforced  by  the  action,  the  music,  and 
the  pantomimic  dance  of  the  public  performance.  Aristoph- 
anes and  his  contemporaries,  the  remote  ancestors  of  the 
modern  satirical  press,  are  hardly  more  remote  in  time  than  in 
the  distance  which  separates  their  skilful  and  graceful,  if  often 
ribald,  verses  from  the  haEomer-and-tongs  caricatures  of 
to-day.  The  "Old  Comedy"  of  Athens  contains  some  of  the 
bitterest,  most  unsparing  lampoons  that  are  known  in  Litera- 
ture, fully  equal  in  gall  to  those  of  Archilochus;  and,  like  his, 
they  are  couched  in  verse  of  great  beauty  of  form,  varied  by 
lyrics  worthy  to  be  paired  with  those  of  any  age  or  land,  a 
combination  essentially  and  characteristically  Greek. 

The  best  example  of  all,  however,  to  show  the  singularly 


110  GREEK  LITERATURE 

close  connection  of  classical  Greek  Literature  with  contem- 
porary Greek  life  is  the  second  great  contribution  of  Athens 
to  the  literary  eminence  of  the  Greeks, — Greek  oratory.  It 
brings  us  also  naturally  to  the  consideration  of  the  third  great 
characteristic  of  that  Literature:  the  appropriateness  of  the 
style  to  the  subject-matter,  and  as  a  corollary  the  permanent 
value  of  the  types  of  form  thus  worked  out.  Appropriateness, 
in  fact,  may  be  called  the  key-note  of  the  best  Greek  art,  liter- 
ary as  well  as  plastic  and  architectural.  Ornament  is  chiefly 
"structural,"  i.e.  naturally  growing  out  of  the  disposition  of 
the  material  to  meet  its  needs.  Nor  was  the  Greek  greatly 
impressed  by  mere  size;  the  "big  thing"  as  such  did  not 
appeal  to  him.      As  Ben  Jonson  expressed  it,  so  he  believed: 

"In  small  proportions  we  just  beauties  see; 
And  in  short  measures  life  may  perfect  be." 

The  endless  epics  of  India  would  have  been  artistic  horrors 
to  the  Greek. 

During  the  first  three  quarters  of  the  fifth  century  B.C., 
Athens  had  been  growing  with  unexampled  speed,  and  her 
intellectual  development  kept  pace  with  her  advance  in  ma- 
terial resources  and  in  military  and  naval  power.  She  had 
become  the  head  of  a  great  confederacy  of  city-states,  the 
members  of  which  presently  found  themselves  in  the  position, 
not  of  aUies,  but  of  subjects.  A  very  harsh  and  unjust  regu- 
lation established  by  Athens  required  all  lawsuits  between 
citizens  of  alhed  states  and  Athenian  citizens  to  be  tried  at 
Athens.  This  of  course  not  only  enormously  swelled  the 
calendar  of  the  Athenian  courts,  but  created  (or  helped  create, 
for  it  was  in  the  blood  already)  a  positive  mania  at  Athens  for 
lawsuits,  comparable  only  to  that  for  theatrical  performances. 
Each  party  to  a  lawsuit  moreover  had  to  appear  in  court  and 
plead  his  own  cause;  naturally  many  litigants  felt  themselves 
unequal  to  the  task  of  preparing  and  presenting  their  own 
cases,  and  were  forced  to  learn  by  heart  and  deliver  speeches 


GREEK  LITERATURE  111 

written  for  them.  There  were  thus  at  Athens  three  powerful 
causes  at  work  to  bring  about  the  perfection  of  a  serviceable 
prose,  of  a  good  oratorical  style:  first,  the  daily  occupation 
of  the  courts  of  law,  which  were  theoretically  each  the  sov- 
ereign people  itself  sitting  in  judgment,  and  practically  often 
consisted  of  a  very  large  number,  sometimes  several  hundreds, 
of  citizens  sitting  as  jurymen;  second,  the  frequent  meetings 
of  the  assembly,  in  which  the  policy  and  government  of  the 
State  were  discussed  with  great  freedom  of  speech;  and  third, 
the  frequent  occasions  of  pubUc  celebration  when  a  "set 
speech,"  an  oration,  formed  a  prominent  and  favorite  part  of 
the  ceremonies.  Not  that  most  Greek  States  did  not  furnish 
abundant  examples  of  all  three;  in  Sicily,  for  instance,  the 
turbulence  and  constant  political  upheavals  of  the  Greek 
towns  put  a  premium  upon  skilful  speech-making,  and  it  is 
very  significant  that  two  of  the  earliest  among  the  celebrated 
teachers  of  oratory,  Corax  and  Tisias,  and  the  pompous  and 
flamboyant  Gorgias,  who  carried  on  their  tradition,  were 
Sicilian  Greeks.  But  Athens  appropriated  the  new  art,  made 
it  over  to  suit  her  own  conditions,  and  impressed  upon  it  her 
own  indelible  stamp. 

It  is  not  difficult  for  us  to-day  to  understand  how  the  great 
public  festivals,  with  thousands  of  spectators  eager  to  hear  as 
well  as  to  see,  should  have  fostered  the  growth  of  a  sonorous 
and  imposing  style  of  composition  and  declamation,  nor  yet 
how  the  exigencies  of  debate  in  the  public  assemblies  should 
have  taught  men  to  speak  to  the  point,  to  exhort  with  fire, 
and  to  warn  with  impressive  earnestness.  It  is  more  difficult 
to  see  how  the  business  of  law  courts  should  have  tended  to 
develop  a  chaste  and  sober  literary  style,  and  equally  so  to 
understand  how  the  only  part  of  the  proceedings  in  court  that 
was  committed  to  writing  and  thus  preserved  was  the  speeches 
of  the  litigants  and  their  supporters;  but  that  is  exactly 
what  took  place,  and  the  fact  is  the  strongest  testimony  to  the 
surpassing  fondness  of  the  Greeks  for  beauty  and  appropri- 


112  GREEK  LITERATURE 

ateness  of  form.  It  happens  that  we  can  trace  the  early  his- 
tory of  artistic  oratory  with  some  completeness  and  detail. 
The  earlier  specimens  that  have  come  down  to  us  are  very 
elaborate  and  artificial;  we  find  all  sorts  of  tricks  of  style, 
aUiteration,  rhyme,  inverse  order,  exact  balance  of  clauses, 
even  to  correspondence  in  the  number  of  syllables,  and  so  on. 
The  so-called  "Sophists,"  particularly  Gorgias  and  Protagoras, 
both  non-Athenians,  are  the  chief  examples  of  this  tend- 
ency. But  the  Athenian  taste  is  severer;  Antiphon,  the 
earliest  example  of  a  really  Attic  orator  known  to  us,  is 
formal  and  stiff,  with  a  prim  exactness  that  reminds  us  con- 
stantly of  the  archaic  sculpture  that  had  been  out  of  fashion 
at  Athens  and  elsewhere  for  seventy-five  years.  How  the 
famous  orators  of  the  earlier  fifth  century  spoke,  Themistocles, 
Pericles,  and  the  rest,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing.  Thu- 
cydides  in  his  History  of  the  Pelopormesian  War  gives  several 
speeches  as  by  Pericles;  but  they  are  not  hkely  to  be  even 
remotely  of  the  style  of  Pericles,  for  Thucydides  makes  all  his 
characters  speak  essentially  alike,  all  in  his  owti  involved  and 
complicated,  though  often  forcible  and  impressive,  style. 
Thucydides  was  banished  from  Athens  in  424,  and  remained 
in  exile  twenty  years.  While  he  was  away  the  style  not  only  of 
oratory  but  of  all  prose  writing  underwent  an  amazing  change. 
It  seems  hardly  possible  that  the  speeches  composed  by  Thu- 
cydides for  the  characters  in  his  history  and  those  written  by 
Lysias  can  belong  to  nearly  the  same  period.  In  actual  time  of 
composition  they  are  nearly  contemporaneous;  in  spirit  they 
are  a  whole  generation  apart. 

By  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century  b.c,  the  ascendancy 
of  Attic  prose  was  so  complete  that  poetry,  while  still  produced 
in  great  quantity,  was  not  only  no  longer  the  dominant  fea- 
ture in  Greek  Literature,  but  showed  no  realty  new  types. 
The  fourth  century  is  thus  essentially  an  epoch  of  prose. 
Unfortunately  we  cannot  judge  fairly  of  the  many  eminent 
historians  of  that  epoch,  because  their  works  have  mostly 


GREEK  LITERATURE  113 

perished;  but  of  the  greatest  orators  we  have  abundant  re- 
mains, the  most  completely  representative  being  Isocrates, 
who  may  well  be  called  the  father  of  the  essay  and  the  po- 
litical pamphlet,  and  the  incomparable  Demosthenes.  And  a 
happy  chance  has  preserved  the  works  of  Plato  practically 
complete. 

Plato,  again,  brilliantly  illustrates  the  Greek,  specifically 
the  Attic,  ability  to  appropriate  and  utterly  transform  ideas 
from  foreign  sources.  Sophron  of  Syracuse  had  given  literary 
form  to  the  Mimos,  or  dramatic  sketch  in  the  form  of  simple 
dialogue,  in  which  the  chief  stress  was  laid  upon  the  delinea- 
tion of  character.  Antique  tradition  has  much  to  say  of 
Plato's  fondness  for  these  mimes;  a  malicious  legend  even  says 
that  his  "Dialogues"  are  mere  copies  of  Sophron.  This  of 
course  is  impossible,  though  Plato  may  have  owed  much  to  his 
Sicilian  models.  It  is  inconceivable  that  any  such  produc- 
tions can  have  approached  the  beauty  of  Plato's  style.  That 
is  unique,  as  the  man  himself  stands  alone  in  the  history  of 
Literature,  the  poet  who  eschews  verse  and  on  moral  grounds 
objects  to  the  whole  tribe  of  poets,  the  aristocrat  of  aristo- 
crats who  despises  the  social  and  political  distinctions  of 
his  own  time,  the  mystic  and  seer  who  makes  his  characters 
talk  in  the  everyday  language  of  the  elegant  Athenian  world. 
Santayana  is,  I  think,  right  when  he  says:  "It  was  after  all 
but  the  love  of  beauty  that  made  him  censure  the  poets;  for 
like  a  true  Greek  and  a  true  lover  he  wished  to  see  beauty 
flourish  in  the  world."  The  speech  is  of  a  kind  possible 
only  in  a  highly  cultivated  urban  society,  which  prides  itself 
on  perfect  control  of  a  subtle  and  idiomatically  difficult 
medium  of  intercourse.  It  shows  the  Attic  language  at  its 
very  best:  wonderfully  flexible,  abounding  in  particles  to 
show  the  subtlest  changes  of  meaning,  sensitive  to  the  shifting 
moods  of  the  speaker,  averse  to  bombast  and  involved  con- 
structions, apparently  careless  yet  always  entirely  conscious  of 
itself.     The  possibilities  of  such   a  language,   and   Plato's 


114  GREEK  LITERATURE 

command  of  it  and  of  all  the  resources  of  style  as  well  as  his 
marvelous  drawing  of  character,  are  best  shown  in  the  'Sym- 
posium,' that  matchless  dialogue  in  which  one  after  another 
of  the  most  prominent  men  of  the  literary  circle  at  Athens  is 
made  to  speak  in  his  own  favorite  manner,  only  to  be  out- 
done by  Socrates,  who  lifts  the  whole  discussion  of  the  nature 
of  Eros  to  an  immeasurably  higher  plane. 

Of  all  Greek  prose  authors,  Plato  seems  to  me  to  lose  most 
in  translation.  The  very  elements  which  make  his  style  so 
interesting  are  those  least  reproducible  in  a  modern  language 
except  at  the  sacrifice  of  other  elements  hardly  less  important. 
At  times  one  of  the  easiest  writers  to  comprehend,  he  is  again 
m.ost  difliicult  and  elusive;  his  moods  change  as  rapidly  as 
those  of  Chopin,  and  the  interpreter  of  the  one  needs  as  exact 
knowledge  and  as  profound  and  intimately  sympathetic 
understanding  as  the  performer  of  the  other. 

After  the  Macedonian  conquest  literary  production  indeed 
went  on  unchecked;  and  the  post-classical  Literature,  i.e. 
the  Literature  from  300  B.C.  to  200  a.d.  or  thereabouts, 
that  has  survived  equals  or  surpasses  in  extent  all  that  we 
have  received  of  the  older  Greek  Literature.  In  substance 
a  great  deal  of  it  is  of  the  first  importance ;  Plutarch  alone 
would  suffice  to  acquit  Greek  Literature  of  the  Roman  period 
from  the  charge  of  being  uninteresting.  But  the  task  of  Greek 
writers,  poets  and  prosaists  alike,  as  molders  of  style  and  creators 
of  types,  was  practically  done  when  Demosthenes,  in  flight  from 
the  Athens  he  had  loved  and  struggled  for  so  well,  ended  his 
life  in  322.  How  well  that  task  had  been  performed  we  may 
understand  when  we  reflect  that  the  types  and  forms  of  their 
creation  have  proved  to  be  no  mere  cold  and  unapproachable 
show-pieces,  but  patterns  susceptible  of  modification  and 
adaptation  to  the  needs  of  age  after  age,  and  so,  with  all  their 
changes,  have  remained  ever  the  same  living  force. 


VI 

LATIN  LITERATURE 
By  Nelson  Glenn  McCrea,  Professor  of  Latin 

It  has  been  commonly  recognized  that  Latin  Literature 
has  two  distinct  claims  upon  the  attention  of  the  modern  mind. 
It  records  on  the  one  hand  the  interpretation  of  human  life 
reached  by  a  great  nation,  whose  disciphned  bravery  conquered 
the  known  world  and  whose  juristic  and  administrative  genius 
then  slowly  worked  out  the  idea  of  a  single  imperial  nation- 
aHty  for  all  the  diverse  peoples  of  its  wide  domain.  This  con- 
ception of  the  possible  political  unity  of  mankind,  first  partially 
and  but  momentarily  realized  in  the  empire  of  Alexander  the 
Great,  was  discerned  again  by  Polybius  as  he  sought  to  under- 
stand the  reasons  why  in  half  a  century  the  civilized  world 
had  fallen  under  the  sway  of  Rome.  In  the  train  of  conquest 
followed  organization,  and  with  two  exceptions,  the  Greek 
and  the  Jew,  ultimate  assimilation.  A  common  language 
sufficiently  flexible  to  adjust  itself  to  the  new  demands  made 
upon  it,  a  common  law  whose  development  had  long  been 
profoundly  influenced  by  the  Stoic  doctrine  of  an  eternal  law 
of  nature  superior  in  its  authority  to  any  specific  human 
legislation,  the  movements  of  trade  and  commerce  made 
possible  by  the  widespread  pax  Romana,  all  tended  to  bind 
closely  together  the  manifold  elements  of  the  Empire.  Cara- 
calla's  extension  of  Roman  citizenship  to  all  free  inhabitants 
of  the  Roman  world,  though  not  so  intended,  was  but  a  nat- 
ural recognition  of  existing  conditions,  "The  Syrian,  the 
Pannonian,  the  Briton,  the  Spaniard,  was  proud  to  call  him- 

115 


116  LATIN   LITERATURE 

self  a  Roman."  And  presently  with  this  idea  of  a  civil  unity 
there  came  to  be  most  intimately  associated  the  idea  of  a 
religious  unity,  so  that  for  centuries  the  belief  in  the  eternal 
existence  of  the  Church  carried  with  it  as  a  necessary  con- 
sequence a  belief  in  the  endless  duration  of  the  Empire. 
For  thousands  of  human  beings  Rome  thus  came  to  be  a 
spiritual  idea  rather  than  a  definitely  localized  city.  Strange, 
indeed,  it  would  be  if  thetLiterature  of  a  nation  so  virile,  so  con- 
structive, whose  career  determined  the  whole  subsequent 
course  of  Western  European  history,  were  not  at  least  suffi- 
ciently expressive  of  the  national  genius  to  command  our 
most  serious  consideration. 

But  there  is  another  aspect  of  Latin  Literature  of  the  greatest 
historical  importance.  It  was  Rome  who  assimilated  and 
transmitted  to  the  western  world  the  culture  of  Greece. 
During  those  five  hundred  years  in  which  the  city  on  the 
Tiber  gradually  fought  her  way  from  the  position  of  a  strug- 
gling little  community  in  the  midst  of  menacing  neighbors  to 
the  assured  .control  of  the  whole  Italian  peninsula,  the  Greeks, 
already  possessed  of  their  Homer,  invented  and  brought  to 
perfection  in  various  parts  of  the  Greek-speaking  world  the 
fundamental  types  of  literary  expression  in  poetry  and  in 
prose.  It  was  practically  inevitable  that  when,  upon  the 
conquest  of  Magna  Grsecia  and  through  the  later  wars  in 
Greece  and  in  the  Hellenized  East,  the  ruling  class  at  Rome 
became  acquainted  with  the  masterpieces  of  Greek  art  and 
letters,  captive  Greece  should,  in  Horace's  phrase,  take  cap- 
tive her  rude  conqueror.  A  generation  succeeded  whose  edu- 
cation from  youth  up  was  full  of  Greek  influences.  The 
younger  Scipio  Africanus,  a  man  of  wonderful  ability,  many- 
sidedness  and  taste,  possessed  of  a  most  winning  person aUty, 
became  the  leader  of  a  circle  of  statesmen  and  writers  who 
were  confident  of  the  nation's  future,  enthusiastic  over  the  new 
culture,  and  convinced  that  the  language  might  most  surely 
and  most  swiftly  be  molded  into  the  medium  for  a  great  na- 


LATIN   LITERATURE  117 

tional  literature  by  the  close  study  of  Greek  models.  The  tide 
of  Hellenism  came  to  its  flood  in  the  prose  of  Cicero  and  the 
poetry  of  Vergil,  the  one  the  most  widely  cultivated  mind 
of  all  antiquity,  the  other,  in  Bacon's  words,  "the  chastest 
poet  and  royalest  that  to  the  memory  of  man  is  known," 
and  both,  in  the  influence  which  they  exerted  alike  upon  the 
minds  of  the  generations  which  immediately  followed  them 
and  in  the  intellectual  life  of  Western  Europe  since  the  Re- 
naissance, as  all  pervasive  as  Latinity  itself.  The  unity  of  the 
Empire  and  the  ease  of  conamunication  between  its  parts 
led  to  the  wide  diffusion  of  this  Graeco-Roman  culture 
throughout  the  provinces.  It  was  an  integral  element  in  the 
life  of  the  new  nationalities,  and  even  the  reentrance  upon 
the  scene  in  the  fifteenth  century  of  the  Greek  originals  them- 
selves failed  to  deprive  it  of  its  primacy  as  a  formative  power. 
It  was  still  the  Latin  writers  who  were  models  of  style  and 
whose  ideas  swayed  the  development  of  art  and  letters.  Not 
until  the  eighteenth  century  did  Greek  come  really  into  its 
own. 

One  of  the  fruits  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  the  formu- 
lation and  wide  apphcation  of  the  historical  and  comparative 
method  in  the  study  of  all  the  results  of  human  activity. 
To  the  investigators  and  critics  who  thus  followed  the  stream 
of  Literature  back  to  its  fountain  heads  this  second  aspect 
of  Latin  Literature  seemed  to  be  of  paramount  significance. 
The  unquestioned  indebtedness  of  Rome  to  Greece  in  all  the 
technique  of  form,  the  constant  and,  at  times,  even  minute 
use  by  the  Latin  writer  of  the  rich  material  gathered  in  the 
earlier  Literature  seemed  to  these  students  to  make  Latin  at 
the  best  but  a  pale  and  ineffectual  reflex  of  the  Greek.  But 
already  there  is  evidence  that  a  different  and  saner  view  will 
presently  obtain.  It  is  being  pointed  out  that  we  cannot 
thus  estimate  Latin  Literature  without  including  in  the  same 
condemnation  much  of  that  which  is  most  justly  admired  in 
our  modern  literatures.     When  once  the  literary  types  have 


118  LATIN  LITERATURE 

been  worked  out,  there  remains  but  one  possible  originality, 
an  originality  of  personality  and  spirit.  Man  is  inevitably 
the,  heir  of  the  ages,  and  "with  the  process  of  the  suns"  the 
elements  for  which  he  is  indebted  to  the  past  become  as  in- 
evitably ever  more  and  more  numerous.  Even  the  "  Iliad  "  is 
now  recognized  to  be  a  highly  artificial  production  and  to 
presuppose  a  long  anterior  period  of  poetic  activity.  It 
has  been  proven  again  and  again,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  case 
of  the  plots  of  Shakspere's  plays,  that  a  poet  may  borrow 
material  from  others  without  in  any  way  impairing  his  own 
claim  to  eminent  or  even  preeminent  merit.  For  the  supreme 
test  of  a  great  work  of  art  must  be  found  in  its  unfailing 
power  to  give  noble  pleasure  to  minds  that  are  sensitive  to 
such  beauty,  and  not  in  the  answer  to  the  question  whether 
the  artist  has  gotten  from  existing  sources  the  material  into 
which  he  has  himself  put  this  subtle  magic.  Judged  by  such 
a  standard  rather  than  by  that  of  their  genetic  relation 
to  their  predecessors,  the  place  of  the  names  that  are  the 
glory  of  Latin  Literature  may  be  regarded  as  having  long 
since  been  fixed  by  the  consensus  of  opinion  of  successive 
generations.  More  than  this,  recent  studies  are  revealing 
with  increasing  clearness  that,  while  not  only  in  form  and 
rhythm  but  also  (especially  in  the  case  of  the  poets)  in  idea, 
phrase,  and  color  they  drew  freely  upon  their  models,  the 
spirit  and  total  effect  of  their  work  is  essentially  Roman  and 
not  Greek.  With  some  striking  exceptions,  chiefly  in  the 
field  of  the  drama,  this  work  reflects  the  environment  of  the 
writer,  social,  political,  or  religious,  and  gives  expression  to 
the  spirit  of  the  time,  its  moods,  gay  or  severe,  its  aspirations, 
self-criticism,  or  despair.  Nsevius  and  Ennius  both  fought 
for  Rome  in  the  field  before  they  composed  their  national 
epics.  Horace,  in  the  opinion  of  a  distinguished  French  critic, 
M.  Pierron,  "  est,  si  je  I'ose  ainsi  dire,  le  siecle  d'Auguste  en 
personne."  The  appeal  of  Vergil's  "  -^Eneid  "  to  his  country- 
men was  so  immediate  that  to  them  not  -^Eneas  but  the  Roman 


LATIN   LITERATURE  119 

people  itself  was  the  real  hero.  We  walk  the  very  streets  of 
Rome  and  note  the  manner  of  the  passing  throng  with  Juvenal 
and  Martial.  Even  Lucretius,  who  seems  so  detached  a 
personality,  and  who  is  so  proud,  after  the  manner  of  all  true 
Epicureans,  of  his  absolute  dependence  upon  the  scrolls  of  his 
revered  master,  produced  a  poem  which  is,  as  Professor  John 
Veitch  said  some  time  ago,  "a  type  in  the  world  of  thought  of 
the  irrepressible  Roman  spirit  of  absolute  sovereignty  and 
love  of  orderly  rule  in  the  world  of  practical  life  and  action." 
And  this  Roman  spirit  shows  itself  not  only  in  the  conquering 
toil  with  which  the  masses  of  disparate  phenomena  that 
prove  to  him  the  invariable  order  of  natural  law  are  finally 
marshaled  in  a  coherent  and  interrelated  series  of  arguments, 
but  even  more  in  the  manner  and  temper  with  which  this 
result  is  achieved.  The  literary  movement  of  the  time  was 
already  Alexandrine,  with  its  love  of  carefully  polished  work 
in  miniature,  learned,  romantic,  and  sentimental.  But  from 
the  group  of  young  poets  of  this  school  to  which  Catullus, 
Calvus,  and  Cinna  belonged,  Lucretius  stood  quite  aloof.  To 
his  eager  mind,  intensely  absorbed  in  the  presentation  of 
that  philosophy  which  would  insure  in  every  recipient  soul 
the  dethronement  of  illusion,  the  reign  of  reason,  most  of 
their  work  must  have  seemed  mere  studied  prettiness.  How 
should  a  poet  whose  verse  reveals  an  instinctive  sympathy 
with  forces  that  operate  on  a  grand  scale  in  illimitable  space 
and  in  unending  time  concern  himself  with  the  ephemeral 
passions  and  ambitions  of  the  moment?  Catullus  himself, 
who  immortahzes  this  moment,  was  possessed  of  too  vigorous, 
too  Roman,  a  temperament  to  be  fettered  by  his  Alexandrian 
technique.  Impassioned  alike  in  love  and  in  hate,  whether 
personal  or  political,  he  uses  a  diction  extraordinarily  lucid 
and  direct.  In  the  longer  elegies  and  in  the  epyllion  on  the 
"Marriage  of  Peleus  and  Thetis"  there  is  unmistakable  evi- 
dence of  deliberate  art  and  even  artifice.  But  in  the  poems 
that  are  expressive  of  his  own  feeling  —  and  no  poet  is  more 


120  LATIN   LITERATURE 

egoistic  —  there  is  a  spontaneity  which  cannot  be  matched 
in  any  other  Latin  poet,  and  the  verse  is  most  exquisitely 
adapted  to  the  shifting  phases  of  emotion. 

The  poem  of  Lucretius  is  in  another  way  characteristically 
Roman.  Epicurus  had  indeed  "traversed  throughout  in 
mind  and  spirit  the  immeasurable  universe  whence  he  re- 
turns victorious  to  tell  us  what  can,  what  cannot  come  into 
being  —  on  what  principle  each  thing  has  its  powers  defined, 
its  deepset  boundary  mark."  But  this  quest  had  not  been 
undertaken  through  any  desire  to  enlarge  the  boundaries  of 
science  for  its  own  sake.  He  had,  on  the  contrary,  a  social 
aim,  to  secure  the  necessary  foundation  for  the  most  indis- 
pensable and  universal  of  all  arts,  the  art  of  living.  Such 
knowledge  as  was  contributory  to  this  end  was  of  vital  im- 
portance ;  all  else  might,  at  the  best,  serve  to  amuse  an  idle 
hour.  In  this  limitation  Epicurus  is  in  no  wise  distinctively 
Greek.  But  with  the  normally  constituted  Roman  the  ques- 
tion of  the  practical  results  of  his  labors  was  always  primary. 
Like  Mr.  Kipling's  typical  American,  he  turned  his  face  natu- 
rally to  "  the  instant  need  of  things  "  and  turned  it  too  with 
much  the  same  "  keen,  untroubled  "  gaze.  Horace,  in  the 
Epistle  to  Augustus  in  which  he  champions  the  modern  school 
of  Latin  poetry  as  against  the  indiscriminate  laudation  of  the 
classic  dead,  makes  at  one  point  a  defense  of  poetry  itself  on 
purely  utilitarian  grounds.  With  characteristic  irony,  but  in 
full  appreciation  of  the  current  standard  of  value,  he  claims 
that  the  poetic  temperament  brings  in  its  train  many  prac- 
tical advantages.  The  poet  is,  at  least,  apt  to  be  free  from 
many  conmion  faults :  — 

"  Rarely  does  avarice  taint  the  tuneful  mind." 

And  in  all  seriousness  he  does  good  service  to  the  State. 
In  the  education  of  the  young  and  the  comforting  of  the  old, 
in  the  commending  of  a  noble  yet  practicable  rule  of  life, 
in  the  worship  that  wins  for   man   the  favor  of   heaven, 


LATIN   LITERATURE  121 

the  poet  plays  a  part  that  must  secure  him  against  the  crit- 
icism of  being  a  drone  in  the  busy  hive. 

Cicero,  too,  found  it  necessary  to  justify  on  Uke  grounds 
his  interest  and  work  in  philosophy.  That  delight  in  the 
intellectual  life  for  its  own  sake,  that  passion  for  inquiry  and 
knowledge  as  the  natural  food  of  the  human  mind  which 
Cicero  so  enthusiastically  describes  in  a  great  passage  in  the 
last  book  of  his  ''De  Finibus, "  was  by  no  means  native  in 
the  Roman  mind,  and  to  the  majority  always  appeared  to 
be  a  vain  thing.  One  recalls  with  amusement  the  story  told 
about  the  proconsul  Gellius,  a  contemporarj'^  of  Cicero. 
This  progressive  governor,  with  a  love  of  order  truly  and 
admirably  Roman,  called  before  him  upon  his  arrival  at 
Athens  the  representatives  of  the  various  schools  of  philos- 
ophy and,  urging  upon  them  the  propriety  of  making  a  final 
adjustment  of  their  differences,  offered  in  perfect  good  faith 
his  service  as  mediator.  Panajtius,  the  friend  of  the  younger 
Scipio,  and  by  far  the  most  influential  of  all  Greek  thinkers 
in  winning  converts  to  Stoicism  at  Rome,  gained  his  success 
by  emphasizing,  not  the  lofty  but  wholly  theoretical  concep- 
tion of  virtue  held  by  the  earlier  Stoics,  but  an  ideal  which 
might  be  realized  in  actual  life.  The  new  doctrine  found  con- 
genial soil,  for  the  heroes  of  Roman  tradition  were,  as  has 
been  pointed  out,  unconscious  Stoics.  It  was  found  that  this 
view  of  life,  in  its  idea  of  a  world  order  to  which  the  individual 
was  bound  to  conform,  in  its  treatment  of  the  deities  of  pop- 
ular belief  as  manifestations  of  the  one  divine  Being,  in  its 
insistence  on  the  duties  which  every  man  owed  to  society 
and  the  State,  was  in  essential  harmony  with  some  of  the 
strongest  elements  in  the  national  character.  This  theory 
could  be  definitely  helpful  in  solving  the  problems  of  daily 
life.  It  might  be  used  to  reinforce  the  constraining  power  of 
the  mos  maiorum,  as  this  was  still  felt  in  the  organization  of 
the  family  and  the  State.  And  if  presently  "the  way  of  the 
fathers"  should  cease  to  be  able  to  provide  adequate  sanction 


122  LATIN   LITERATURE 

for  personal  and  civic  morality  (the  Empire  saw  this  danger 
realized  in  the  extinction  of  liberty),  philosophy  might  take 
its  place  altogether  in  maintaining  the  standard.  Cicero  is 
much  concerned  to  make  clear  this  practical  value  of  its  own 
labors  in  this  field,  to  relate  them  not  so  much  to  human  life 
in  general  as  to  the  particular  needs  of  his  countrymen  and 
their  historical  traditions,  to  show  that,  because  of  the  dis- 
cipline and  breadth  which  it  alone  could  give,  the  study  of 
philosophy  was  for  a  self-governing  people,  and  especially 
for  the  statesman  and  the  publicist,  a  necessary  complement 
of  the  regular  training  in  literature,  law,  and  oratory.  In 
the  series  of  volumes  which  appeared  in  rapid  succession  in 
the  years  45  and  44  b.c,  dealing  in  part  with  the  criterion 
of  knowledge,  in  part  with  the  ethical  standard,  Cicero  was, 
he  conceived,  meeting  a  practical  need  as  certainly  as  in  his 
earlier  works  on  rhetoric  and  political  science. 

One  of  these  earher  works,  the  treatise  "On  the  State,"  has 
come  down  to  us  in  a  very  fragmentary  condition,  but  enough 
remains  to  enable  us  to  form  a  definite  idea  of  Cicero's  po- 
litical philosophy.  The  book  offers  a  most  instructive  con- 
trast to  the  famous  "  Repubhc  "  of  Plato  on  which  Cicero  mod- 
eled his  own  work.  The  aim  of  both  inquirers  is  substantially 
the  same ;  namely,  to  ascertain  the  moral  principles  of  an 
ideal  polity  and  to  describe  its  governmental  form.  But 
the  earlier  thinker,  approaching  the  problem  in  the  spirit  of  a 
speculative  philosopher  in  search  of  the  absolute  good,  works 
out  with  inflexible  logic  the  consequences  of  that  principle 
of  justice  which  must  be  realized  both  in  the  State  and  in  its 
citizens.  The  result  is  the  construction  of  a  marvelously 
intricate  and  interrelated  social  organism,  a  book  crowded 
with  ideas  and  ideals  of  permanent  value.  But  the  State, 
as  specifically  constituted,  is  wholly  theoretical,  at  variance 
with  all  human  experience  and  incapable  of  realization.  The 
Roman,  though  he  has  a  most  engaging  enthusiasm  for  great 
ideas,  is  far  too  completely  the  child  of  his  race  to  put  any 


LATIN   LITERATURE  123 

faith  in  a  series  of  abstract  ethical  propositions  and  their  nec- 
essary corollaries.  He,  too,  describes  an  ideal  State,  but  he 
is  evidently,  after  all,  idealizing  an  actually  tested  form  of 
government ;  namely,  the  constitution  of  Rome  as  it  existed 
in  the  time  of  the  younger  Scipio  Africanus.  He  would  fain 
in  his  own  age  have  played  the  part  of  a  La^lius  to  the  Scipio 
of  Pompey,  and,  as  he  looked  back  to  those  golden  days,  so 
different  from  the  lowering  present,  it  seemed  to  him  that 
Polybius  was  right  in  thinking  that  Rome  then  possessed 
"the  most  beautiful  framework  of  government  of  all  that  are 
in  our  times  known." 

Important  as  it  was  in  Cicero's  judgment  that  his  country- 
men should  be  made  familiar  with  the  subject-matter  of  Greek 
philosophy,  it  was  no  less  important  that  these  ideas  should 
be  presented  in  a  style  that  would  serve  both  to  win  for  them 
a  readier  hearing  and  to  enrich  the  Literature  with  an  artistic 
form  not  hitherto  represented.  The  undertaking  bristled 
with  difficulties.  There  was  as  j^et  in  existence  in  Latin  no 
treatment  of  philosophy  in  prose  of  the  slightest  scientific 
or  literary  value.  Lucretius  indeed  had  lived;  but  his  work 
was  in  poetry,  and  dealt  with  one  single  school  of  thought 
and  in  the  main  with  only  one  aspect,  the  physical  and 
mechanical,  of  the  teaching  of  even  that  school.  It  was 
necessary  to  create  a  philosophical  vocabulary;  and,  while 
even  the  plastic  Greek  had  only  in  the  hands  of  a  long  suc- 
cession of  thinkers  become  wholly  adequate  for  the  expression 
of  abstract  thought,  Latin,  a  language  which  finds  perhaps 
the  most  striking  monument  of  its  purely  native  capacity 
in  the  objective  concreteness  of  Csesar's  ''Commentaries,"  had 
to  be  made  through  the  genius  of  a  single  worker  an  instru- 
ment of  like  power.  The  notable  success  which  was  achieved 
would  no  doubt  have  been  impossible  if  Cicero  had  not  profited 
to  the  utmost  by  the  terminology  already  worked  out  in 
Greek.  Even  so  considered,  it  was  an  amazing  feat,  the  far- 
reaching  importance  of  which  did  not  appear  until  long  after 


124  LATIN  LITERATURE 

his  death.  For,  as  the  event  proved,  it  was  Cicero  who 
made  possible  the  Latinity  of  the  Church  Fathers  from  Minu- 
cius  Fehx  to  Saint  Augustine,  and  to  whom  the  scholastic 
philosophy  of  the  Middle  Ages  owed  the  medium  requisite 
for  its  expression. 

Whence  came  this  marvelous  power  over  language,  which 
from  the  days  of  Quintihan,  his  ardent  admirer,  made  Cicero 
the  most  potent  influence  in  Roman  education,  which  in 
the  Renaissance  captivated  Petrarch,  and,  through  that 
great  movement  in  which  Petrarch  was  the  leader,  placed 
Cicero  in  his  commanding  position  as  a  Uterary  artist  ?  The 
answer  must  be  found  in  the  development  of  oratory  at  Rome. 
In  Tacitus's  "  Dialogue  "  on  this  subject,  it  is  pointed  out  in 
defense  of  the  oratory  of  the  Republic  and  of  Cicero  as  its 
greatest  representative  that  "it  may  be  said  of  eloquence, 
as  of  a  flame,  that  it  requires  motion  to  excite  it,  fuel  to  feed 
it,  and  that  it  brightens  as  it  burns."  For  "  the  mental  powers 
of  the  orator  rise  with  the  dignity  of  his  subject  and  no  one 
can  produce  a  noble  and  brilliant  speech  unless  he  has  an 
adequate  case."  As  Tacitus  was  only  too  well  aware,  great 
eloquence  is  most  intimately  connected  with  the  vigor  and 
freedom  of  national  life.  When  that  life  is  instinct  with 
great  ideas  and  principles,  when  the  minds  and  passions  of 
men  are  deeply  stirred  by  political  and  social  movements  of 
grave  import  to  the  commonwealth,  the  conditions  are  most 
favorable  for  a  native  eloquence,  and,  if  training  be  added, 
for  a  great  style.  In  the  survey  of  the  development  of  Roman 
oratory  which  Cicero  has  given  to  us  in  the  "  Brutus,"  it  is 
clear  that,  from  the  day  when  Appius  Claudius  Caecus  made 
against  the  conclusion  of  a  peace  with  Pyrrhus  the  first  pub- 
lished speech  in  Roman  annals,  the  fiercely  disputed  ques- 
tions of  internal  and  foreign  policy  and  the  sessions  of  the 
law-courts  resulted  in  a  continuous  improvement  of  a  practical 
art,  which  was  most  congenial  to  the  Roman  temperament. 
The  elder  Cato,  Gains  Gracchus,  Crassus  and  Antonius,  the 


LATIN   LITERATURE  125 

teachers  of  Cicero  in  his  youth,  Hortensius,  his  great  rival 
at  the  bar,  "the  king  of  the  courts,"  mark  the  steps  of  a 
progress  from  rude  natural  effectiveness  to  artistic  excellence 
that  we  can  ourselves  trace  even  in  the  tantalizingly  few 
fragments  of  their  speeches  which  have  been  preserved. 
With  Cicero  our  data  become  abundant,  for  there  are  extant 
fifty-seven  out  of  over  one  hundred  speeches  which  he  delivered. 
These  speeches,  studied  in  connection  with  his  masterly 
treatises  on  the  ideal  orator,  prove  that  not  only  did  he  bring 
Latin  prose  style  to  the  highest  point  of  formal  development, 
but  also  that  in  one  very  real  sense  he  may  actually  be  called 
its  founder.  The  earlier  orators,  it  is  true,  had  learned  much 
from  Greek  rhetoricians,  alive  and  dead,  about  the  harmony 
which  should  exist  between  form  and  content,  but  Cicero 
was  the  first  to  work  out  and  to  use  on  a  large  scale  a  com- 
prehensive theory  of  oratory  as  a  fine  art,  in  so  far  as  it  might 
be  capable  of  realization  in  Roman  life  and  in  the  Latin 
tongue.  This  theory  was  the  slow  fruition  of  close  study 
of  Greek  masters  and  masterpieces,  and  he  is  peculiarly  in- 
debted to  Isocrates,  to  whom,  in  fact,  in  Greek  Literature 
also  all  subsequent  prose-writers  were  ultimately  indebted 
for  the  rhytlmaical  swell  of  the  periodic  sentence.  By  the 
most  intense  and  unremitting  application,  by  the  devotion 
of  a  lover  to  his  art,  Cicero  made  himself  a  consummate  master 
of  rhetorical  structure,  of  phrase,  and  of  cadence.  Neither 
Flaubert  nor  Stevenson  ever  worked  more  passionately  than 
he  to  achieve  style,  to  cast  his  thoughts  into  such  a  form  as  to 
satisfy  at  once  the  critical  mind  and  the  critical  ear.  The 
prose  which  he  thus  perfected  was  naturally  the  prose  of  the 
orator,  the  prose  of  one  who  addressed  an  actual  audience. 
When  later  he  began  to  adapt  it  to  meet  the  needs  of  the 
treatise  and  the  essay,  it  was  still  a  prose  that  was  shaped  to 
yield  its  meaning  and  its  charm  on  the  first  reading.  In  fact, 
even  those  of  his  works  that  were  intended  to  be  read  rather 
than  to  be  heard  are  cast  in  the  form  of  the  dialogue.     The 


126  LATIN   LITERATURE 

same  tone  naturally  appears  in  his  Letters.  Their  vivacity 
and  changing  moods  reproduce  the  movement  of  animated 
conversation,  and  in  nothing  that  he  has  left  to  us  is  the 
sureness  and  ease  of  his  control  of  the  language  more  strik- 
ing. His  correspondents,  men  of  distinction  though  they 
were,  fall  markedly  below  his  level. 

In  that  dialogue  of  Tacitus  to  which  I  have  already  re- 
ferred, it  is  claimed  by  the  admirer  of  the  republican  oratory 
that,  "while  the  style  of  Caesar  is  the  more  transparent, 
the  style  of  Cicero  is  the  more  impassioned,  the  richer,  the 
more  forcible."  As  none  of  Csesar's  speeches  has  survived, 
we  have  no  means  of  verifying  the  estimate  of  Cicero,  who 
places  him  in  the  very  first  rank,  but  we  are  probably  justi- 
fied in  forming  some  idea  of  the  secret  of  his  success  through 
his  "Commentaries"  on  the  Galhc  and  Civil  wars.  These 
"materials  for  the  study  of  history"  are  presented  in  a  manner 
that,  for  its  purity  of  idiom,  lucidity,  and  terseness,  is,  as 
Cicero  says  in  the  "  Brutus,"  the  despair  of  professed  histo- 
rians. Still,  unadorned  as  is  the  style,  the  sentences  flow  and 
are  woven  together  into  a  continuous  web.  But  already  a 
different  ideal  of  writing  had  found  its  great  representative. 
Historical  composition  had  begun  at  Rome  with  the  "  Origins  " 
of  the  elder  Cato,  whose  motto  had  been  "make  sure  of  the 
sense,  and  the  words  will  follow."  The  practical  value  of 
history  was  evident  to  the  Roman  mind,  and  this  field  was 
accordingly  much  cultivated.  Under  the  Empire,  indeed, 
the  historians  became  the  foremost  representatives  of  prose. 
But  historiography  developed  slowly ;  and  Sallust,  contem- 
porary with  Cicero  and  Csesar,  was  the  first  to  use  a  scientific 
method  and  an  artistic  form.  Attracted  by  Thucydides 
rather  than  by  Isocrates,  he  worked  out  a  new  type  of  Latin 
prose  stjde,  highly  compressed  in  thought  and  in  expression, 
abrupt  and  epigrammatic.  He  is  a  lover  of  the  words 
and  phrases  of  a  bygone  age,  with  a  special  fondness  for 
Cato.     His  sentences,  for  the  most  part  short  and  simple  in 


LATIN   LITERATURE  127 

their  structure,  follow  one  another  staccato  fashion.  Quin- 
tilian  speaks  admiringly  of  his  "immortal  swiftness."  It 
is  a  style  quite  conscious  of  its  own  art,  which  it  by  no  means 
attempts  to  conceal.  Next  to  Cicero,  Sallust  is  the  chief 
model  in  prose  for  the  following  centuries.  Tacitus  learned 
of  him,  and  still  later,  in  an  archaizing  age,  he  is  highly  re- 
garded by  Fronto  and  by  GelHus. 

The  two  fundamentally  opposed  ideals  of  form  which 
came  to  expression  in  the  prose  of  Cicero  and  of  Sallust,  re- 
spectively, were  destined  to  receive  under  the  Empire  a  most 
characteristic  and  most  splendid  realization  in  the  historical 
work  of  two  geniuses  of  the  first  rank.  The  governing  factor 
in  the  development  of  republican  prose  had  been  the  need, 
imperative  in  spoken  discourse,  of  being  understood  at  once, 
as  the  words  succeeded  one  another.  The  style  had  to  be 
fused  with  the  thought,  and,  like  it,  had  to  be  such  as  to  win 
instant  appreciation.  But  with  the  loss  of  freedom  and  the 
decline  of  oratory  conditions  changed.  The  appeal  was  then 
made  even  more  to  a  reading  than  to  a  Ustening  public. 
The  gentle  reader  might  linger  over  the  art  of  the 
writer,  and  this  art  in  turn  might  be  made  so  intricate  in 
its  nice  balance  of  phrase  and  clause,  so  daring  in  the  com- 
pactness of  its  thought  and  structure,  so  subtly  suggestive 
in  the  literary  associations  of  its  diction,  as  to  reveal  its  full 
charm  and  power  only  after  some  attentive  consideration. 
It  is  in  this  fashion  that  Livy  continues  the  Ciceronian  tradi- 
tion, and  Tacitus  the  Sallustian.  The  two  men  are  as  wide 
apart  in  temperament  and  method  as  they  are  different  in 
manner.  Judged  by  modern  standards,  Livy  is  in  no  sense 
a  scientific  historian.  To  examine,  whenever  possible,  origi- 
nal sources,  to  sift  with  a  critical  and  open  mind  a  mass  of 
conflicting  evidence,  to  search  for  the  truth  with  an  austere 
disregard  of  the  possible  resultant  destruction  of  one's  own 
cherished  opinions,  all  this  was  alien  to  his  enthusiastic  soul. 
He  never  consciously  misrepresents  the  facts,  but  he  is  es- 


128  LATIN   LITERATURE 

sentially  a  hero-worshiper,  and  his  greatest  hero  is  the  Roman 
Commonwealth  itself.  "Fallen  on  evil  times,"  as  he  thinks, 
he  idealizes  the  great  past,  and,  conceiving,  as  we  read  in  his 
famous  preface,  that  it  is  the  fmiction  of  history  to  teach 
good  citizenship,  he  is  unconsciously  predisposed  to  accept 
that  form  of  the  story  which  will  enable  him  to  point  his 
moral  most  effectively.  Yet  such  is  his  innate  sympathy 
and  kinship  with  the  elements  of  character  which  made  Rome 
great  that,  notwithstanding  grave  deficiencies,  his  work  has 
an  enduring  truth  and  value.  It  is  really  a  prose  epic,  written 
in  a  style  of  extraordinary  eloquence  and  picturesqueness. 
To  the  historian  and  to  the  lover  of  Literature  alike  the  loss 
of  over  three-quarters  of  the  entire  work  is  certainly  the  great- 
est which  Latin  Literature  has  sustained. 

A  great  modern  historian,  Leopold  von  Ranke,  says  of 
Tacitus  :  "If  one  yields  to  the  impression  made  by  his  works, 
one  is  carried  away  by  it.  There  is  no  trace  in  him  of  the 
manner  and  method  of  Greek  historiography.  He  is  Roman 
through  and  through,  and  indeed  the  master  of  all  who  have 
written  before  or  since."  Unlike  Livy,  Tacitus  brought  to  the 
help  of  his  historical  investigation  the  practical  training  gained 
in  a  long  and  distinguished  official  career.  In  the  opening 
paragraphs  of  the  "  Histories  "  and  the  "  Annals  "  he  avows 
his  intention  to  write  with  perfect  freedom  from  prejudice. 
A  thorough  aristocrat  and  lover  of  the  old  order,  he  saw, 
nevertheless,  that  the  Empire  was  definitively  established. 
He  could  even  fully  appreciate  the  enlightened  rule  of  a  Trajan. 
But  the  fifteen  years  of  "silent  servitude"  under  Domitian  had 
permanently  embittered  his  soul,  and  despite  his  best  efforts 
the  prevailing  somberness  of  his  thoughts  profoundly  influ- 
enced his  judgment  as  a  historian.  Though  by  no  means 
unerring  in  his  analysis,  he  was  endowed  by  nature  with  a 
marvelous  power  to  trace  the  hidden  springs  of  thought  and 
action.  His  portrayal  of  character  is  subtle  and  vivid.  The 
phrases  bite  as  does  the  acid  in  etching.     The  style  is  charged 


LATIN  LITERATURE  129 

with  imagination,  and  everywhere  in  the  diction  one  sees  the 
influence  of  Vergil,  to  whom  alike  as  artist  and  as  patriot 
his  own  personahty  was  so  closely  akin. 

Nothing  in  the  whole  range  of  Latin  Literature  illustrates 
more  strikingly  its  close  connection  with  the  national  char- 
acter and  the  need  of  the  time  than  the  work  of  Rome's 
greatest  poet.  The  long  years  of  civil  strife  that  terminated 
in  the  battle  of  Actium  had  exhausted  Italy,  had  substituted 
factional  bitterness  for  the  sense  of  a  common  country  and 
had  made  of  slight  effect  the  traditional  moral  and  religious 
sanctions  of  civic  conduct.  Augustus  and  his  ministers, 
confronted  by  the  urgent  need  of  reconstruction,  called  into 
play  remedial  forces  of  very  varied  kinds.  Among  these 
was  Literature.  Vergil's  "  Georgics  "  is  not  a  poem  born  of  the 
love  of  Nature  for  her  own  sake,  —  though  Vergil  shows  such 
love,  —  nor  does  it  treat  of  the  life  of  man  in  the  country  in 
any  cosmopolitan  way.  Italy  is  the  theme  and  the  Roman 
virtues  and  strength  of  character  fostered  by  the  hard  struggle 
with  the  reluctant  yet  bountiful  earth.  For  agriculture 
was,  if  possible,  to  be  again  honorably  esteemed,  as  in  the 
days  when  Cincinnatus  left  his  plow  to  guide  the  State. 
The  poem  is  the  quintessence  of  long  musing  on  the  subject 
in  one  of  the  loveliest  parts  of  Italy  and  of  a  study  of  the 
effects  of  word  and  phrase  that  was  almost  microscopic.  The 
fruit  of  seven  full  years  of  labor  was  a  poem  of  2200  lines  — 
less,  on  the  average,  than  a  line  a  day.  But  this  poem  at 
once  made  its  author  the  object  ''  of  a  people's  hope."  And 
this  hope  was  justified  in  the  "^neid."  Here  Vergil  shows 
himself  to  be  one  of  that  very  small  number  of  poets  who 
appeal  to  the  universal  heart  of  man.  No  other  poem  in 
the  world's  Literature  is  more  many-sided,  no  other  has  played 
so  large  a  part  in  the  mental  life  of  so  many  generations  of 
men.  Yet  Vergil  was  far  from  consciously  writing  for  any 
such  audience.  He  "  sounds  forever  of  Imperial  Rome,"  whose 
finer  fife  he  strove  adequately  to  express  and  to  quicken. 


130  LATIN  LITERATURE 

Possessed  in  the  highest  degree  of  that  catholic  receptivity 
which  both  Polybius  and  Posidonius  noted  as  among  the 
admirable  qualities  of  the  Roman  mind,  he  used  as  by  natural 
right  the  imaginative  interpretation  of  human  life  of  his  great 
predecessors,  whether  Greek  or  Roman.  But  he  puts  upon 
all  the  stamp  of  his  own  personality,  essentially  Roman  in 
his  purpose  and  totality  of  effect,  even  where  the  material 
is  most  Homeric. 

"  Our  wills  are  ours,  to  make  them  Thine."  It  would 
be  impossible  to  define  here  the  full  significance  of  the 
"^Eneid."  Professedly  a  poem  of  action,  it  is  in  fact  a 
musing  upon  the  mystery  of  human  life,  upon  its  infinite 
pathos,  its  uncertain  issue,  its  permitted  greatness.  To  the 
modern  world,  with  its  apotheosis  of  the  individual  man, 
iEneas,  as  Vergil  has  drawn  him,  is  apt  to  seem  rather  a 
concept  than  a  real  human  being.  Yet  he  incarnates  the 
virtues  upon  which,  to  the  poet's  mind,  depended  the  real- 
ization of  the  high  hopes  of  the  new  order.  The  age  had 
learned  to  its  cost  the  meaning  of  personal  ambition.  Ver- 
gil held  up  to  it  the  contrasted  picture  of  patience,  self- 
control,  and  obedience  to  the  divine  call.  Through  such 
forgetfulness  of  self,  and  through  this  alone,  it  had  been  pos- 
sible to  lay  the  foundations  of  the  State  ;  through  the  same 
high  devotion  Rome  had  grown  great.  In  no  other  way 
could  her  life  be  preserved  and  enriched  for  the  generations 
to  come. 

Horace,  Vergil's  contemporary,  is  in  another  way  equally 
the  child  of  his  age  and  responsive  to  the  movement  of  the  time. 
Between  the  Homeric  Odysseus  and  the  Vergilian  ^Eneas, 
says  Sainte-Beuve,  "I'urbanite  etait  nee."  Horace,  as 
ready  in  his  address  as  Vergil  was  shy  and  awkward,  is,  in 
a  special  sense,  the  representative  in  Latin  Literature  of  this 
temper  and  manner.  It  is  not,  of  course,  peculiar  to  his 
works.  We  admire  it  also,  for  instance,  in  the  distinguished 
Romans  who  figure  in  Cicero's  dialogue  "  On  the  Orator."     In 


LATIN   LITERATURE  131 

the  poet's  familiar  "  Talks  "  and  "  Letters  "  we  are  listening  to 
an  accomplished  man  of  the  world.  Fully  aware  of  the  diffi- 
culties which  beset  the  pathway  of  hfe,  he  criticizes  with 
kindly  humor  and  tolerance  the  foibles  and  errors  of  others, 
and  derives  from  his  own  an  amusement  which  he  shares 
with  his  readers.  Yet,  with  all  this  gaiety  of  tone,  he  pursues, 
true  Roman  that  he  is,  a  very  practical  end;  namely,  the 
determination  of  the  principles  by  which  one  may  order  one's 
life  aright.  The  teaching  of  the  schools  gave  him,  no  doubt, 
greater  breadth  of  view,  but  Horace's  philosophy  of  life  is 
ultimately  the  outcome  of  that  habit  of  shrewd  observation 
of  courses  of  action  and  their  results  which  his  father  had  so 
sedulously  fostered.  It  finds  expression  even  in  his  lyric 
poetry,  on  which  his  fame  as  a  great  literary  artist  chiefly 
rests.  ''The  hght  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land"  comes  not 
to  him.  But  if,  even  in  the  "  Odes,"  we  have  "the  light  of 
common  day,"  it  is  none  the  less  a  world  touched  with  the 
hues  of  fancy  and  with  man's  finer  tastes  and  hopes.  Like 
Vergil,  he  is  in  full  sympathy  with  the  efforts  of  the  new 
regime  to  restore  the  ideals  of  the  past.  The  noble  series 
of  odes  that  opens  the  third  book  is  in  effect  a  single  poem 
in  which  Horace  commends  "virginibus  puerisque"  the  moral 
qualities  that  should  be  theirs,  both  as  individuals  and  as 
citizens  of  Rome. 

"The  marked  peculiarity  of  Roman  constitutional  history," 
says  Professor  James  S.  Reid,  "is  its  unbroken  evolution, 
whereby  a  mode  of  government  which  originally  sprang  up 
in  connection  with  a  small  town  community  was  gradually 
adapted  for  the  direction  of  a  widespread  empire.  No  violent 
breach  of  continuity  is  to  be  found  in  the  whole  course  of  the 
changes  which  passed  over  the  pohtical  existence  of  Rome 
from  the  dawn  of  its  history  to  its  latest  phases."  One  may 
and  one  should,  I  think,  find  in  Latin  Literature  the  reflection 
of  the  same  continuously  developing  national  life.  A  number 
of  instances  have  been  discussed  to  show  the  intimate  rela- 


132  LATIN  LITERATURE 

tion  that  existed  between  these  two  things.  But  a  few  cases 
only  have  been  taken  out  of  a  possible  many.  One  might 
go  farther  and  point  out  how  in  the  early  days  of  the  Litera- 
ture the  rollicking  fun  and  wit  of  Plautus  assume  forms 
which  could  not  possibly  have  been  derived  from  his  Greek 
originals  and  whose  spirit  is  truly  Italian ;  how  Terence  gave 
to  the  still  undisciplined  language  a  polish  that  delighted 
even  the  critical  taste  of  the  Ciceronian  age  and  justly  prided 
himself  upon  being  a  well  of  "Latin  undefiled."  One  might 
note  the  brilliancy  with  which  Ovid's  verse  mirrors  the  gay, 
cultivated,  and  cynical  society  of  the  world's  capital  in  the 
beginning  of  the  Imperial  era.  Juvenal's  pitiless  indictment 
of  his  time  must  be  corrected  by  the  cheerful  optimism  of 
the  younger  Pliny,  who  is  as  circumstantial  in  his  praise 
of  the  persons  and  things  that  were  good  as  is  Juvenal  in  his 
indignation  with  the  persons  and  things  that  were  evil.  And 
so  one  might  deal  with  many  a  name.  The  language,  too, 
shows  a  homogeneous  growth  from  the  writers  of  the  third 
century  before  Christ  to  Boethius  in  the  sixth  century  a.d. 
Inherently  sonorous  and  dignified,  inherently  logical  in  the 
structure  of  its  sentences,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  predomi- 
nating use  of  the  principle  of  subordination  as  against  that 
of  coordination,  it  reflects  in  point  after  point  the  mental 
traits  of  the  people  that  used  it.  If  it  is  ever  true  that  "  ie 
style  est  Thomme,"  then  one  must  see  in  the  Latin  language 
and  its  Literature  the  unmistakable  impress  of  the  race  whose 
consummate  genius  was  for  law  and  order  and  government. 

"  Tu  regere  imperio  populos,  Romane,  memento  — 
Hae  tibi  erunt  artes  —  pacisque  imponere  morem, 
Parcere  subiectis  et  debellare  superbos." 


VII 
THE   MIDDLE   AGES 

By  William  Witherle  Lawrence,  Associate  Professor 
OF  English 

When  we  attempt  to  summarize  the  literary  achievement 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  we  are  forced  by  cruel  necessity  to  begin 
with  a  definition.  What  is  meant  by  "the  medieval  period,"  — 
that  is  to  say,  within  what  limits  of  time  shall  it  be  inclosed  ? 
While  we  cannot  settle  the  question  dogmatically,  it  is  im- 
portant that  we  should  be  agreed  at  the  outset,  and  have  a 
perfectly  clear  idea  of  what  we  are  discussing.  Our  fore- 
fathers would  have  felt  no  doubts  about  this  matter.  They 
viewed  the  Middle  Ages  as  a  dreary  void,  destitute  of  litera- 
ture or  art  worth  serious  consideration,  extending  from  the 
decay  of  classical  letters  to  the  revival  of  learning.  "The 
fierceness  of  Gothick  humours,"  as  Sir  WiUiam  Temple  quaintly 
put  it,  was  supposed  to  have  stifled  culture  completely. 
But  since  we  have  come  to  see  in  the  poetry  of  the  early  Ger- 
manic peoples  a  grave  beauty  and  simplicity  rivaling  that  of 
the  classics,  and  in  the  feudal  period  following,  a  splendor  and 
picturesqueness  which  the  Elizabethan  Age  can  hardly 
equal,  we  must  acknowledge  that  "the  Middle  Ages"  is  indeed 
a  misleading  title.  These  ten  centuries  from  500  to  1500  are 
worthy  of  a  better  name,  although  the  old  one  still  survives  in 
common  use.  We  are  dealing  not  merely  with  a  transition 
period,  preparing  the  way  for  better  things  to  come,  but 
with  an  age  containing  a  rich  and  varied  literature  of  its 
own. 

133 


134  THE  MIDDLE   AGES 

It  is,  furthermore,  most  unsatisfactory  to  treat  this  interval 
of  a  thousand  years  or  so  as  a  single  era.  For  it  is  not  a  homo- 
geneous whole;  it  falls  into  two  periods  distinct  from  each 
other  in  almost  every  way.  The  Norman  Conquest  of  Eng- 
land may  stand  as  a  boundary  line,  marking  the  turning-point 
of  those  far-reaching  changes  in  Western  Europe  with  which 
we  are  all  familiar.  The  phenomena  were  complex,  and  not 
merely  those  of  literary  evolution.  European  history, 
political,  social,  religious,  linguistic,  and  literary,  was  begin- 
ning afresh.  The  whole  structure  of  society  was  shifting; 
the  feudal  system,  which  had  been  gradually  supplanting  the 
old  social  order,  now  revealed  its  full  strength,  and  sharp 
caste  distinctions  began  to  prevail.  Christianity  united  men 
in  a  common  interest  as  never  before,  through  the  splendid 
folly  of  the  Crusades.  As  a  political  institution,  the  medieval 
church  attained  the  summit  of  its  glory  in  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries.  Its  idealism,  in  the  midst  of  much 
material  prosperity,  was  fittingly  symbolized  in  its  cathedrals, 
the  noblest  achievements  of  medieval  architecture.  Radical 
changes  were  taking  place  in  the  languages  of  the  Western 
nations;  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  speak  of  the  beginning  of 
the  Middle  English  and  Middle  High  German  periods,  and 
the  emergence  of  the  Romance  dialects  in  literature.  In 
brief,  the  twelfth  century  marked  an  advance  in  almost  every 
branch  of  human  activity. 

Particularly  striking  is  the  leadership  of  France.  After 
1100,  she  became  the  acknowledged  sovereign  of  the  literatures 
of  Western  Europe.  For  the  next  five  centuries  the  sister 
nations,  now  settled  in  approximately  their  present  positions 
after  long  years  of  unrest,  were  content  to  listen  to  stories 
from  her  lips.  Never  was  there  a  better  illustration  of  that 
social  quality,  that  element  of  universality,  which  Brunetiere 
found  the  most  striking  characteristic  of  French  Literature. 
France  borrowed  much  from  abroad,  but  she  purified  it  of 
its   dross,    and   returned   it,   transformed    and  transfigured, 


THE  MIDDLE   AGES  135 

to  the  people  whence  it  came.  The  Middle  English  metrical 
romances  were  mere  imitations  of  French  models;  the  great 
Middle  High  German  masters,  Gottfried,  Wolfram,  and  Hart- 
mann,  looked  avowedly  to  France  for  their  material;  Roland 
was  hardly  less  celebrated  in  Italy  than  in  his  native  land; 
and  far-away  Iceland  translated  into  its  vernacular  the  ro- 
mantic stories  of  Chretien  de  Troyes  and  Marie  de  France. 
In  form  as  well  as  in  subject-matter  France  had  much  to  teach. 
From  Provence  in  the  south  came  the  poetry  of  elaborate 
rhyme  and  graceful  compliment;  from  the  north  came  epic 
verse,  with  its  marching  assonances  and  stately  movement. 
The  old  alliterative  measures  had  run  their  course.  In  a 
word,  the  imaginative  Literature  of  Europe  in  the  feudal  period 
is  largely  the  reflection  in  the  surrounding  countries  of  the 
achievements  of  France. 

It  may  be  said,  then,  that  at  this  time,  a  little  after  the 
Norman  Conquest,  the  medieval  period  had,  in  the  truest 
sense,  its  beginning.  The  most  characteristic  productions  of 
the  Middle  Ages  sprang  from  the  fusion  of  the  Germanic  and 
the  Romance  peoples,  from  the  union  of  what  was  best  in  bar- 
barian and  in  classic  stock.  Much  of  what  preceded,  in  the 
so-called  Dark  Ages,  was  really  a  survival  of  classic  thought, 
as  in  Boethius,  or  of  Germanic  paganism,  as  "  Beowulf." 
That  was  the  true  transition  period.  The  richest  treasures 
of  Medieval  Literature  came  later,  in  the  more  complete 
amalgamation  of  the  two  elements  which  had  long  struggled 
for  supremacy.  Both  had  gained  the  victory.  The  bar- 
barian triumphed  over  Roman  power,  i3ut  later,  in  the  emer- 
gence of  the  Romance  nations,  the  old  Latin  stock  was  "born 
again  "  into  a  new  vigor.  And  it  is  this  rebirth,  three  centuries 
or  so  earlier  than  the  time  we  call  the  Renaissance,  which 
gives  the  era  its  peculiar  distinction  in  art,  in  architecture, 
in  philosophy,  and  in  religion,  as  well  as  in  literature. 

In  the  following  discussion,  then,  I  propose  to  consider  this 
second  division  of  the  Middle  Ages,  extending  from  about  the 


136  THE   MIDDLE   AGES 

year  1 1 00  to  the  full  Renaissance.  This  period  is  fairly  homo- 
geneous and  distinct;  it  is  possible  to  sum  up  its  more  striking 
characteristics  in  a  definite  way.  Its  close,  however,  is  not  so 
satisfactorily  determined  as  its  beginning.  The  passing  of 
the  medieval  spirit  takes  place  at  different  times  in  different 
countries;  in  Italy  about  a  hundred  years  earlier  than  in  the 
sister  nations.  No  rigid  division  is  possible;  medievalism 
fades  gradually  in  the  dawn  of  the  Renaissance.  But  its 
essential  qualities  are  none  the  less  clear  on  this  account. 
So  well  defined  are  they  that  common  usage  is  more  and  more 
coming  to  regard  this  later  time  as  "the  medieval  period." 
As  Professor  Ker  says,  "When  the  term  'medieval'  is  used  in 
modern  talk,  it  almost  always  denotes  something  which  first 
took  shape  in  the  twelfth  century."  So,  too,  when  Professor 
Beers  gives  as  one  definition  of  romanticism  "the  reproduc- 
tion, in  modem  art  or  literature,  of  the  life  and  thought  of 
the  Middle  Ages,"  he  means,  if  I  understand  him  aright,  the 
life  and  thought  of  the  feudal  period.  It  is  on  the  Age  of 
Chivalry,  then,  that  we  shall  fix  our  attention  here. 

The  literature  of  the  aristocracy  illustrates  best  the  changes 
from  the  age  preceding.  Medieval  romance,  which  swept 
everything  before  it  as  a  literary  fashion,  was  determined 
mainly  by  the  upper  classes.  The  literature  of  the  clergy 
and  that  of  the  commons  represents  less  of  a  break  with 
earlier  traditions.  To  understand  the  characteristics  of  the 
medieval  romantic  spirit,  as  distinguished  from  the  romantic 
spirit  in  other  times,  whatever  that  elusive  quality  may  be, 
one  must  look  at  the  work  of  such  writers  as  Chretien  de 
Troyes,  Benoit  de  Ste.  More,  or  Marie  de  France;  a  far  cry 
irideed  from  the  poetry  of  the  Dark  Ages.  The  difference 
lies  partly  in  externals,  and  partly  in  social  ethics.  On  the 
one  hand  is  a  society  more  or  less  like  that  described  by  Taci- 
tus in  the  "  Germania  "  ;  on  the  other,  one  similar  to  that  in 
the  pages  of  Froissart.     Unlike  as  were  the  times  of  Clovis 


THE   MIDDLE   AGES  137 

and  Charlemagne,  they  belong  together  as  against  those  of 
William  the  Conqueror  and  St.  Louis.  The  very  sumptu- 
ousness  of  the  later  age  reveals  this,  the  increased  splendor 
of  dwellings,  of  garments,  of  feasts,  of  churches.  The  court 
of  an  Edward  the  Third,  with  its  rich  costumes,  its  ladies 
in  silk  and  cloth  of  gold,  its  music  of  many  instruments,  its 
glittering  armor,  its  tapestries,  its  painted  windows,  —  all 
this  is  far  more  "romantic"  than  that  of  an  Alfred,  where 
everything  was  simpler  and  cruder,  less  for  show,  and  more 
for  use.  A  certain  studied  picturesqueness  is  a  constant 
characteristic  of  the  later  period.  Not  so  in  the  earlier  age; 
when  Sigurd  came  to  the  halls  of  Gjuki  and  received  Gudrun 
as  a  bride,  the  ''Poetic  Edda"  merely  tells  us  that  her  dowry 
was  rich,  and  that  men  drank  and  caroused  for  days.  Con- 
trast such  scenes  in  the  "Nibelungenlied,"  where  the  old 
story  has  been  decked  out  with  feudal  magnificence,  Arabian 
stuffs  and  dazzling  gold  on  every  hand.  The  earlier  poets 
were  chiefly  interested  in  the  action  and  its  consequences; 
the  later  ones  quite  as  much  in  the  stage-setting  and  the 
accessories.  Chaucer  even  anticipates  blame  for  omitting 
such  descriptions,  when  a  wedding  comes  into  the  story :  — 

"  Now  wolden  som  men  seye,  para  venture, 
That  for  my  necligence  I  do  no  cure 
To  tellen  yow  the  loye  and  al  tharray 
That  at  the  feste  was  that  like  day." 

And  in  the  "Knight's  Tale,"  we  feel,  as  we  do  in  reading 
its  source  from  the  pen  of  Boccaccio,  that  the  whole  is  not  so 
much  a  story  as  a  series  of  gorgeous  tapestries.  It  is  not, 
then,  so  much  the  addition  of  strangeness  to  beauty,  upon 
which  Pater  and  other  critics  have  insisted,  as  the  addition 
of  sumptuousness  to  beauty,  which  characterizes  the  romantic 
narratives  of  this  age.  There  was  magic  and  mystery  enough 
in  the  earlier  period;  Mirkwood,  through  which  the  swan- 
maidens   flew,    was   as   much   enchanted   as    the   forest    of 


138  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

Broceliande.  The  swan-maiden  was  a  primitive  sort  of  lady, 
however,  content  with  a  garment  of  feathers,  while  the 
starry-eyed  damsel  of  Arthurian  story  is  quite  inconceivable 
without  her  robes  of  azure  and  gold. 

But  it  is  not  chiefly  in  externals  that  the  romantic  spirit 
of  this  period  lies.  The  sj^stem  of  chivalry  introduced  the 
most  striking  changes  in  social  ethics.  Now,  as  before,  the 
natural  occupation  of  the  hero  was  war,  but  war  carried  on 
in  a  far  different  spirit.  An  age  which  had  thought  disloyalty 
of  a  warrior  to  his  chief  the  deepest  disgrace  was  succeeded 
by  one  in  which  obedience  was  secured  mainly  by  brute  force, 
and  treachery  was  held  venial  sin.  This  change  is  well  seen 
in  the  chansons  de  geste.  In  the  "Song  of  Roland,"  devotion 
to  land  and  sovereign  is  second  orJy  to  duty  to  God,  while 
the  later  chansons  are  full  of  the  struggles  of  the  barons 
against  the  king.  Roland  fought  for  God  and  sweet  France; 
the  knight  of  later  days  for  Woman  and  his  own  sweet  self. 
And  that  brings  us  to  the  second  great  change,  the  transforma- 
tion of  the  love-element.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  affairs 
of  the  heart  were  less  regarded  in  the  earlier  age.  There  was 
love-interest  enough  in  Germanic  poetry,  however;  one  thinks 
of  Brynhild,  Hilde,  Gudrun,  Hildeguthe, — but  theirs  was  a 
love  devoid  of  sentimentality  and  affectation.  And  no  mat- 
ter how  ardent  the  devotion  of  the  Germanic  hero,  he  always 
felt  himself  the  master.  It  was  the  woman's  part  to  give 
obedience.  Even  the  Valkyrie  Brynhild  forfeited  her  suprem- 
acy by  marriage.  On  the  other  hand,  a  greater  exaltation 
of  Woman  than  that  accorded  her  in  the  feudal  period  could 
scarcely  be  desired  by  the  most  ardent  modern  champion  of 
her  rights.  Beautiful,  haughty,  and  disdainful,  she  demanded 
that  man  be  her  servant  and  her  slave.  Her  consent  was 
finally  granted  out  of  pity  for  her  lover,  frequently  as  a  sort 
of  remedial  measure,  lest  his  love-sickness  should  prove 
fatal.  Roland  himself,  the  most  unsentimental  of  heroes, 
became  in  a  later  age  Orlando  Innamorato  or  Orlando  Furioso, 


THE   MIDDLE  AGES  139 

—raging  mad  for  love !  Both  in  love  and  war,  then,  the  man  of 
the  later  Middle  Ages  was  an  individualist,  while  the  earlier 
hero  fixed  his  simple  thoughts  on  the  larger  issues,  bloody  and 
bestial  though  they  sometimes  were. 

One  of  the  strangest  features  of  the  feudal  period  is  its 
passion  for  form  and  convention,  which  we  are  wont  to  con- 
sider antithetic  to  the  romantic  ideal.  In  the  romantic 
revolt  of  the  eighteenth  century,  for  instance,  the  reaction 
against  formal  rules  of  poetry  and  life  is  most  striking.  Such 
a  protest  as  this  was  no  part  of  the  medieval  romantic  pro- 
gram. As  far  as  convention  was  concerned,  the  Middle 
Ages  were  far  more  hampered  than  classic  times,  though  in 
a  different  way.  One  might,  indeed,  almost  call  the  key-note 
of  the  era  of  chivalry  its  love  of  system.  In  the  deepest 
interests  of  life  it  was  controlled  very  largely  by  conven- 
tion, careful  of  the  esteem  of  the  world,  anxious  to  have 
the  universe  reduced  to  rule. 

This  formalism  manifests  itself  strikingly  in  the  two  mo- 
tives most  prominent  in  its  narrative  literature,  love  and 
war,  and  equally  so  in  a  third  motive,  religion.  Chivalry  and 
sacerdotal  celibacy  imposed  their  unnatural  restrictions  on 
the  three  most  vital  relations  of  life:  man's  attitude  towards 
his  fellow-men,  towards  women,  and  towards  God.  Chivalry 
was  in  some  ways  immoral;  it  exalted  illicit  passion,  and 
confined  healthy  love  in  a  strait-jacket  of  etiquet.  More- 
over, the  typical  love-affair  was  often  a  ridiculously  affected 
procedure,  a  mixture  of  valentine  sentimentality  and  erotic 
grandiloquence.  Its  formulas  crystallize  into  allegory  in  such 
a  work  as  the  "Romance  of  the  Rose,"  where  set  rules  for 
making  love  are  to  be  found. 

"It  is  the  Romance  of  the  Rose, 
Which  doth  Love's  gentle  art  inclose." 

The  tremendous  vogue  of  love-allegory  is  typical  of  this  arti- 
ficiality in  the  later  Middle  Ages.     Even  such  healthy  and 


140  THE  MIDDLE   AGES 

natural  spirits  as  Chaucer  and  Dunbar  were  deeply  affected 
by  it.  Hand  in  hand  with  this  went  the  passion  for  more 
realistic  though  not  less  formal  analysis  of  the  heart.  Rous- 
seau was  not  more  minutely  painstaking  in  the  self-searchings 
of  his  "Confessions"  than  was  Dante  in  the  "Vita  Nuova." 
The  great  Italian  did  not  disdain  to  set  forth  the  physio- 
logical manifestations  accompanying  his  passion  for  Beatrice, 
to  explain  the  operations  of  "the  natural  spirit,"  and  "the 
animal  spirit,"  or  to  dissect  the  songs  which  he  composed  in 
her  honor. 

Again,  consider  the  formalism  of  medieval  warfare  and 
medieval  religion.  There  is  not  a  little  analogy  between  the 
unwieldy  armor  in  which  the  knight  ensconced  himself,  and 
the  absurd  conventions  which  weighed  him  down.  The  arti- 
ficial rules  of  the  tournament  were  observed  in  many  cases 
even  in  serious  fighting.  This  lasted  until  the  rise  of  the 
yeoman  infantry,  when  mounted  knights,  those  huge  unwieldy 
iron  towers,  were  hopelessly  at  a  disadvantage.  As  Froissart 
says  of  the  battle  of  Poitiers,  "whenever  any  one  fell,  he  had 
little  chance  of  getting  up  again."  In  one  engagement  the 
warriors  were  aggrieved,  we  are  told,  because  their  opponents 
did  not  clothe  themselves  in  defenses  as  cumbrous  as  their  own. 
They  had  not  "played  fair"  in  the  game  of  war.  The 
same  passion  for  system  is  observable  in  the  Church.  The 
Scholastic  philosophy  aimed  to  justify  theology  by  the  exercise 
of  pure  reason.  Even  in  the  Mystic  movement,  that  plea  for 
emotion  in  religion,  which  became  in  later  times  a  protest 
against  Scholasticism,  there  was  a  strange  artificiality.  The 
very  stages  by  which  the  soul  was  to  attain  perfect  communion 
with  the  Divine  were  exactly  determined.  The  reaction  of 
liberalism  against  formalism  could  not  escape  formalism 
itself.  This  persistence  of  allegory  is  one  of  the  most  con- 
spicuous characteristics  of  Medieval  Literature.  While  often 
employed  ineffectively  and  inartistically,  it  was  used  by 
master  hands  with  tremendous  effect.     And  this  effect  was 


THE  MIDDLE   AGES  141 

gained  partly  because  the  metaphorical  habit  of  thought 
was  natural  to  the  writer,  and  in  no  wise  inconsistent  with 
perfect  sincerity.  There  is  no  better  illustration  of  this 
than  the  "Divine  Comedy."  In  other  ages  the  allegory  is 
generally  frankly  a  convention.  Consider,  for  example, 
the  work  of  Boethius  or  Bunyan.  The  maiden  who  brings 
consolation  to  Boethius  in  his  affliction  is  never  felt  to  have 
any  real  existence.  She  is  a  mere  abstraction  personified. 
In  "Pilgrim's  Progress,"  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman  and  the  Giant 
Despair  are,  excepting  for  juvenile  readers,  only  symbols 
of  the  materialism  and  despondency  which  assail  the  Christian 
hero.  But  to  Dante  the  circles  of  Hell  had  a  reality  of  their 
own;  could  one  actually  visit  the  abodes  of  the  dead,  such 
might  be  the  sights  he  would  see.  The  wonderful  thing  is, 
then,  that  the  Middle  Ages  were  sometimes  actually  convinced 
of  the  existence  of  the  artificial  conventions  which  they  had 
themselves  developed,  whether  in  love,  in  war,  or  in  religion. 
The  symbol  had  become  a  reality. 

In  criticizing  the  artificiality  of  the  feudal  period  we  must 
not  forget  its  virtues.  It  represented  a  very  real  advance  over 
the  Dark  Ages  in  all  the  refinements  of  life.  Gentleness, 
courtesy,  and  humility  were  its  watchwords.  It  had  high 
ideals,  partly  shaped  by  the  Christian  faith,  which  are  well 
symbolized  by  the  Quest  of  the  Holy  Grail.  None  but 
the  knight  who  was  pure  of  heart  could  behold  the  sacred  cup. 
It  was  forever  denied  to  Launcelot,  because  of  his  sinful  love 
for  Guenevere.  And  as  the  story  developed,  one  hero  was 
found  too  worldly,  and  another  set  up  in  his  place.  Twice 
this  happened:  Gawain  was  dethroned  to  make  way  for  Per- 
ceval, who  in  his  turn  was  succeeded  by  Galahad,  the  saint- 
liest  of  medieval  knights.  There  is  no  better  summary  of 
the  ideals  of  the  best  romances  than  a  passage  in  Caxton's 
preface  to  the  "  Morte  Darthur."  It  may  well  stand  as  a 
refutation  of  old  Roger  Ascham's  accusation  that  the  whole 
pleasure  of  the  book  "standeth  in  open  manslaughter  and 


142  THE  MIDDLE   AGES 

bold  bawdry."  Caxton  says  his  work  has  been  done  "to  the 
intent  that  noble  men  may  see  and  learn  the  noble  acts  of 
chivalry,  the  gentle  and  virtuous  deeds  that  some  knights 
used  in  those  days,  by  which  they  came  to  honor,  and  how 
they  that  were  vicious  were  punished,  and  oft  put  to  shame 
and  rebuke;  hiunbly  beseeching  all  noble  lords  and  ladies, 
with  all  other  estates  of  what  estate  or  degree  they  been 
of,  that  shall  see  and  read  in  this  said  book  and  work,  that  they 
take  the  good  and  honest  acts  in  their  remembrance,  and  to 
follow  the  same.  Wherein  they  shall  find  many  joyous  and 
pleasant  histories,  and  noble  and  renowned  acts  of  humanity, 
gentleness,  and  chivalry.  For  herein  may  be  seen  noble 
chivalry,  courtesy,  humanity,  friendliness,  hardiness,  love, 
friendship,  cowardice,  murder,  hate,  virtue,  and  sin.  Do 
after  the  good  and  leave  the  evil,  and  it  shall  bring  you  to  good 
fame  and  renommee."  These  virtues  which  Caxton  em- 
phasizes are  typical  of  the  advance  of  the  ideals  of  the  feudal 
period  over  those  of  Germanic  heathendom.  The  Anglo- 
Saxon  chief  exulted  with  bitter  and  mocking  mirth  in  the 
defeat  and  death  of  his  foe;  such  courtesy  and  deference  as 
Gawain's  would  have  sickened  him,  and  Gawain's  attentions 
to  women  would  have  appeared  still  less  in  keeping  with  the 
character  of  a  great  warrior.  As  for  the  optimistic  view  that 
good  prevails  in  the  end,  the  earlier  age  knew  little  of  it,  hold- 
ing rather  to  the  pagan  formula  "Fate  goeth  ever  as  it  will." 
Despite  its  defects,  then,  the  era  of  chivalry  made  a  great 
advance  towards  that  delicacy  of  feeling,  that  ability  to  ap- 
preciate the  point  of  view  of  others,  which  are  characteristic 
of  the  gentleman  of  modern  times.  Its  manners  were  arti- 
ficial, but  these  very  artificialities  suppressed  the  headstrong 
violence  of  pagan  days,  and  made  true  courtesy  ultimately 
possible  for  the  heart  as  well  as  for  the  head. 

For  sincerity  and  realism,  however,  we  must  look  elsewhere 
than  to  the  literature  of  the  higher  classes.  When  we  speak 
of  narratives  of  chivalry,  we  think  first  of  those  told  for  the 


THE  MIDDLE   AGES  143 

gentle-born,  but  it  would  be  a  grave  mistake  to  judge  medie- 
val story  mainly  from  the  tales  in  the  castle  hall.  The  fellow 
in  russet  under  the  walls  had  a  greedy  ear  for  a  story,  and 
imspoiled  feelings  for  sentiment  and  pathos.  He  loved 
a  tale  of  his  betters,  and  told  it  with  an  appealing  vigor  which 
the  most  heroic  of  the  romances  lack.  There  is  no  better 
way  of  realizing  the  sincerity  of  popular  literature  than  by 
comparing  the  romances,  full  of  the  artificial  elaborations 
which  we  have  just  been  observing,  and  the  ballads,  with 
their  poverty  of  description  and  simplicity  of  form.  Let  us 
take  a  familiar  ballad,  "Child  Waters":  — 

"  Childe  Watters  in  his  stable  stoode 
And  stroaket  his  milke-white  steede ; 
To  him  came  a  faire  young  ladye 
As  ere  did  weare  womans  weede." 

No  description  of  the  knight,  and  the  lady  and  the  horse 
disposed  of  in  three  lines !  When  the  heroine  has  her  say  she 
speaks  from  the  heart:  — 

"Shee  sales  'I  had  rather  haue  one  kisse, 
Child  Waters,  of  thy  mouth. 
Than  I  wold  haue  Cheshire  and  Lancashire  both, 
That  lyes  by  north  and  south. 

"  'And  I  had  rather  haue  a  twinkling, 
Child  Waters,  of  your  eye. 

Than  I  wold  have  Cheshire  and  Lancashire  both, 
To  take  them  mine  oune  to  bee  ! '  " 

The  high-born  lady  acts  otherwise.  Listen  to  the  coquetry 
of  the  heroine  of  Chretien's  "  Yvain."     She  says  to  the  knight : 

"'Pray  tell  me  why  you  are  so  humble.'  [He  answers]  'Lady, 
I  am  subdued  by  my  heart,  which  is  wholly  yours ;  to  these  desires 
it  has  brought  me.'  [She  replies]  'And  what  has  subdued  the 
heart,  fair  friend?'  'Lady,  my  eyes.'  'And  what  the  eyes?' 
'The  great   beauty  which  I  see  in  you.'     'And  how  has   beauty 


144  THE  MIDDLE   AGES 

transgressed?'  ' Lady,  inasmuch  as  it  has  made  me  love.'  [The 
Lady,  much  surprised]  'Love,  and  whom?'  'You,  dear  lady.' 
' Me ? '  '  Yea,  truly.'  ' In  what  way,  then ? '  'So  that  it  cannot  be 
greater,  so  that  my  heart  ever  follows  you,  ...  so  that  I  am 
ever  your  humble  slave,  so  that  I  love  you  more  than  myself,  so 
that  I  am  wholly  yours,  to  live  or  die  for  you.'  " 

After  this,  and  more  conversation  like  it,  the  poet  naively 
remarks,  "And  so  they  quickly  came  to  an  understanding." 

Again,  it  is  in  ballad  literature  that  the  deeper  notes  of 
tragedy  are  struck,  which  one  misses  in  aristocratic  narrative. 
Even  in  the  "Morte  Darthur"  the  pathetic  scenes,  fine  as 
they  are,  sometimes  betray  a  certain  stiffness,  like  the  con- 
straint of  medieval  paintings.  Observe,  too,  how  little 
Chaucer  cared  for  tragic  effect  in  narrating  the  death 
of  Troilus.  But  a  deeply  moving  theme  like  that  in  the 
ballad  "Edward"  bites  into  the  heart  with  acid  poignancy. 
The  mother  asks  in  horror  the  meaning  of  the  blood  on  her 
son's  sword.  After  he  has  vainly  tried  to  evade  the  question, 
the  dreadful  truth  comes  out :  — 

" '  Why  dois  your  brand  sae  drap  wi  bluid, 

Edward,  Edward, 

Why  dois  your  brand  sae  drap  wi  bluid, 

And  why  sae  sad  gang  yee  O  ? ' 
'  O  I  hae  killed  my  hauke  sae  guid, 

Mither,  Mither, 
O  I  hae  killed  my  hauke  sae  guid, 
And  I  had  nae  mair  but  hee  O.' 

"  *  Your  haukis  bluid  was  nevir  sae  reid, 

Edward,  Edward, 
Your  haukis  bluid  was  nevir  sae  reid, 

My  deir  son,  I  tell  thee  O.' 
'O  I  hae  killed  my  reid-roan  steid, 

Mither,  Mither, 
O  I  hae  killed  my  reid-roan  steid. 
That  erst  was  sae  fair  and  frie  O.' 


THE   MIDDLE   AGES  145 

" '  Your  steid  was  auld,  and  ye  hae  got  mair, 
Edward,  Edward, 
Your  steid  was  auld,  and  ye  hae  got  mair, 

Sum  other  dule  ye  drie  O.' 
'O  I  hae  killed  my  fadir  deir, 

Mither,  Mither, 
O  I  hae  killed  my  fadir  deir, 
Alas,  and  wae  is  mee  0  ! '  " 

Here  one  feels  the  power  of  Nemesis  as  much  as  in  Greek 
tragedy.  This  art  the  romance  writers  seldom  gained.  They 
borrowed  much  from  popular  narrative,  but  they  never 
learned  the  value  of  restraint.  A  metrical  romance  would 
have  preferred  to  multiply  Edward's  father  into  a  thousand 
Saracens,  and  to  dwell  with  glee  on  their  thousand  harrowing 
deaths.  Apart  from  popular  poetry,  there  is  little  true  pathos 
in  Medieval  Literature. 

One  of  the  greatest  charms  of  this  poetry  is  its  haunting 
rhythms.  Made  to  be  sung,  and  sung  by  unlettered  folk, 
it  lingers  in  the  memory  when  the  elaborate  artifices  of  Min- 
nesinger and  Troubadour  are  forgotten.  Its  simple  measures 
are  often  adjusted  to  the  subject  with  a  delicacy  that  is  only 
felt  after  many  readings.  These  measures  are  not  always 
smooth  and  polished,  as  art-poets  would  have  made  them, 
and  inldiorn  copyists  have  kept  them,  but  they  produce 
effects  that  many  a  modern  poet  has  vainly  tried  to  reproduce. 
Even  such  poets  as  Rossetti,  Scott,  Keats,  Coleridge,  and 
Kipling  have  had  only  partial  success.  We  are  too  artistic 
and  too  mannered  nowadays  to  attain  true  ballad  simplicity. 
But  the  peculiar  coloring  of  this  poetry  is  unforgettable. 
Its  characteristic  sadness  comes  out  in  the  popular  lyric 
as  well :  — 

"  Winter  wakeneth  all  my  care, 

Now  these  leaves  are  waxing  bare, 

Oft  I  sigh  and  mouru  full  sore 

When  it  cometh  in  my  thought 

How  this  world's  joy  goeth  all  for  naught." 

L 


146  THE   MIDDLE   AGES 

And  when  we  turn  to  Comedy,  we  find  the  popular  Muse 
again  supreme.  The  hearty  laugh  and  the  merry  jest  most 
often  come,  as  might  be  expected,  from  the  full  throats  of 
the  lower  classes.  For  the  Hogarth  picture  of  the  Middle 
Ages  we  must  turn  to  the  fabliaux,  those  coarse  and  witty 
tales  unfit  for  the  ears  of  dames.  It  is  a  thousand  pities  that 
such  masterly  bits  of  narration,  short  stories  in  verse  at  a  time 
when  there  were  so  few  in  prose,  are  so  indecorous  as  to  be 
impossible  for  modern  readers.  The  romances  show  the  age 
as  it  imagined  itself  to  be;  the  fabliaux,  as  it  really  was. 
They  ridiculed  hypocrisy  in  the  church  and  immorality  in 
the  relations  of  the  sexes  with  biting  irony,  and  took  a  wicked 
delight  in  the  frailties  of  the  smugly  virtuous.  They  were 
essentially  a  French  product,  other  nations  lagging  behind 
the  brightness  of  Gallic  wit.  And  they  exercised  a  strong  in- 
fluence on  more  studied  literary  productions.  When  we  trace 
medieval  humor  to  its  origins,  even  when  a  great  artist  has 
shaped  it,  we  generally  hear  the  voices  of  the  people.  Such 
men  as  Chaucer,  Pulci,  Rabelais,  illustrate  this  admirably. 
In  Chaucer's  tales  of  the  Reeve  and  Miller  we  recognize  the 
technic  of  the  fabliau.  Rabelais  shows  book-learning  re- 
fracted by  popular  irreverence,  the  same  spirit  which  set 
wandering  scholars,  men  of  the  middle  classes,  to  parodying 
the  offices  of  the  Church.  Pulci,  really  outside  the  limits  of 
our  period,  takes  the  unromantic  view  of  romantic  characters 
current  among  the  people,  and  makes  the  burlesque  "Mor- 
gante  Maggiore. "  The  cruder  fun  is  of  medieval  origin;  the 
more  delicate  facets  in  the  story  belong  to  the  Renaissance. 
As  for  Chaucer's  dry  humor,  that  belongs  to  him  and  not  to 
his  age.  His  whimsical  vein,  something  like  the  spirit  we  see 
to-day  in  the  work  of  Mr.  Barrie,  is  rare  indeed  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  Too  seldom  is  medieval  humor  subtle;  too  often  it  is 
of  the  slap-stick  order.  This  is  true  even  of  the  greatest 
achievement  of  medieval  wit,  the  beast-epic  of  "Reynard 
the  Fox."     It  is  not  without  its  subtleties,  particularly  if  the 


THE   MIDDLE   AGES  147 

allegory  is  made  elaborate,  but  the  real  joy  of  the  piece  comes 
from  the  tricks  of  the  rascally  Reynard,  who  successfully 
defies  the  king  and  the  laws,  offends  against  morality,  ridi- 
cules the  Church  and  its  rites,  and  yet  comes  out  unscathed 
in  the  end.  Reynard  is  the  prize  rogue  of  medieval  times, 
but  he  is  more  than  this,  he  is  a  kind  of  sublimation  of  bour- 
geois villainy.  The  people,  smarting  under  the  oppressions 
of  the  king  and  the  nobility,  took  a  glorious  revenge  in  the 
creation  of  Reynard  the  Fox. 

The  greatest  single  force  in  Medieval  Literature  remains 
to  be  considered,  the  Church.  For  high  and  low  alike, 
religion  was  no  remote  abstraction,  to  be  confined  to  Sun- 
days; it  was  a  most  practical  and  ever  present  issue.  Its 
tremendous  importance  in  the  life  of  the  whole  people  can 
scarcely  be  sufficiently  insisted  upon.  The  Canterbury 
Pilgrimage,  comprising  practically  every  rank  of  society, 
illustrates  this  admirably,  although  the  devotion  of  some 
of  the  company  is  hardly  greater  than  that  of  the  modern 
lady  who  goes  to  church  to  display  an  Easter  bonnet.  We  do 
not  get  the  true  essence  of  medieval  religion  from  the  easy- 
going Canterbury  pilgrims.  The  terrors  of  the  Last  Judg- 
ment were  frequently  in  the  mind  of  the  medieval  man, 
coloring  all  his  thoughts  and  acts.  God  and  the  Devil  were 
not  theological  conceptions,  they  were  very  near  and  real 
beings.  In  those  days  any  one  might,  perhaps,  be  startled 
at  meeting  an  angel  or  a  fiend  in  the  midst  of  some  every- 
day occupation,  but  no  one  would  have  considered  it  strange. 
The  supernaturalism  of  heathen  times  was  still  strong  in  the 
minds  of  the  people,  although  transformed  according  to 
Christian  beliefs.  At  every  mom.ent  in  life  the  powers  of 
good  and  evil  were  waiting  to  aid  or  to  destroy  mankind. 

We  can  understand  something  of  this  permeation  of  every 
human  interest  by  religion  when  we  observe  how  deeply 
it  affected  every  type  of  Medieval  Literature.  Since  the 
Church,  in  theory  at  least,  held  sway  over  things  temporal 


148  THE  MIDDLE   AGES 

as  well  as  things  eternal,  she  fostered  and  perpetuated  both 
secular  and  religious  Literature.  Far  less  than  in  other 
periods  is  it  possible  to  distinguish  the  two.  The  monk  in 
the  scriptorium  copied  romances  as  well  as  the  lives  of  saints; 
the  abbot  read  his  breviary  and  his  Ovid  with  equal  frequency. 
Occasionally  a  theological  discussion  intrudes  into  a  romance. 
Roland,  in  one  of  the  later  Charlemagne  stories,  discourses 
to  Vernagu,  a  black  giant  forty  feet  tall,  about  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  and  other  points  of  Christian  dogma.  The 
homiletic  note  was  sounded  at  every  turn,  no  matter  what 
the  subject.  History,  beginning  with  the  Creation,  was  made 
to  set  forth  the  relations  between  God  and  man,  and  point 
a  series  of  moral  lessons.  In  the  bestiaries  the  qualities  of  the 
lion  recalled  the  virtues  of  Christ;  the  whale,  decoying  mariners 
to  disembark  on  its  back,  and  then  engulfing  them,  illustrated 
the  treachery  of  the  devil.  The  lapidaries  revealed  virtues 
and  vices  through  the  medium  of  jewels.  Disputed  questions 
of  various  kinds  were  decided  by  reference  to  the  Bible.  The 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  important  in  teaching  arithmetic ; 
the  Scriptures  fm-nished  proof  of  astronomical  hypotheses. 
Medical  science  was  a  curious  jumble,  full  of  charms  in  which 
the  saints  had  taken  the  places  of  heathen  divinities.  Gen- 
uine science  was  likely  to  meet  the  reception  accorded  to  the 
labors  of  Roger  Bacon  or  later  to  the  discoveries  of  Galileo. 
Truly,  the  Church  left  no  type  of  Literature  untouched, 
and  touched  nothing  which  it  did  not  color  with  its  own 
beliefs,  and  transform  for  its  own  purposes. 

Within  the  Church  itself,  two  contrasting  tendencies  are 
noticeable.  On  the  one  hand,  the  utmost  naivete  in  the  rela- 
tion of  religion  to  life,  and  on  the  other,  the  utmost  subtlety 
in  theological  speculation.  Medieval  religion  was  frequently 
gloomy,  as  we  have  seen,  and  heaven  a  place  to  be  forfeited 
by  what  we  should  now  consider  venial  sin.  Normal  and  in- 
nocent human  desires  were  looked  upon  as  inspirations  of  the 
Devil.     This  led  to  placing  exaggerated  value  on  a  virtue,  no 


THE   MIDDLE   AGES  149 

matter  how  manifested,  or  how  far  carried  to  excess.  There 
was  no  "golden  mean"  in  the  Middle  Ages.  A  thing  was  bad 
or  it  was  good,  and  that  was  an  end  of  it.  That  evil  may 
consist  in  the  misuse  of  things  capable  of  good  is  an  ethical 
proposition  foreign  to  habits  of  medieval  thought.  Griselda, 
resolving  to  be  a  patient  wife,  and  sacrificing  to  this  her  happi- 
ness, her  health,  her  honor,  and  the  lives  of  her  children,  or 
Amis,  exalting  friendship  to  such  a  degree  that  he  murders 
his  little  boj's  to  cure  his  friend  Amiloun  of  leprosy,  — 
these  are  examples  of  the  sort  of  conduct  the  Middle  Ages 
found  admirable.  Again,  no  sympathy  was  extended  to 
those  outside  the  fold  of  the  Church.  The  converted  Saracen 
princess  in  the  romance  of  "Ferumbras,"  in  the  ardor 
of  her  new  faith,  exhorts  the  Christian  knights  to  kill  her 
aged  father,  who  still  sticks  out  for  his  old  god  "Mahoun." 
"You  ought  to  have  killed  him  last  night,  when  you  captured 
him,"  she  says.  Every  consideration  of  natural  feeling  and 
womanly  tenderness  is  made  subordinate  to  this  revolting 
type  of  Christianity.  Such  puerile  and  short-sighted  con- 
ceptions of  ethics  and  religion  are  abundantly  illustrated  in 
the  medieval  lives  of  the  saints  and  apostles,  and  in  the 
pious  tales  and  exempla.  While  many  are  offensive  to  our 
modern  feelings,  most  of  them  make  a  strong  appeal  through 
their  sincerity  and  childlike  simplicity.  The  popular  element 
is  further  noticeable  in  their  love  of  a  good  story,  and  in  the 
tendency  to  embellish  it,  as  a  shrine  is  hidden  beneath  the 
votive  offerings  of  the  faithful.  Much  professedly  religious 
Literature  in  the  Middle  Ages,  put  into  shape  by  ecclesiastics, 
is  almost  as  truly  the  product  of  the  people  as  the  ballads. 

It  is  astonishing  to  contrast  with  this  the  keenness  and 
minuteness  of  philosophical  speculation.  Philosophy  in  the 
Middle  Ages  meant  theology,  of  course,  since  all  philosophy 
not  in  accord  with  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  was  heresy. 
Within  the  Church  arose  Scholasticism,  the  effort  to  make 
religion  a  thing  of  reason  as  well  as  of  revelation.     This  was 


150  THE   MIDDLE   AGES 

the  noblest  intellectual  task  open  to  the  medieval  thinker, 
to  reveal  the  mind  of  God  in  terms  of  human  logic.  Never 
was  authority  more  reverenced  than  in  this  age,  yet  many  of 
its  most  brilliant  intellects  sought  to  establish  by  argument  the 
reasonableness  of  ecclesiastical  dogma.  But  Scholasticism, 
like  alchemy,  ended  where  it  began.  Bolder  spirits,  men  of 
unimpeachable  devoutness,  like  Saint  Bernard,  dared  to  pro- 
claim dogma  incapable  of  logical  analysis,  and  turned  to  the 
sensuous  interpretation  of  religion  which  we  call  Mysticism. 
The  speculative  tendency  within  the  Church  really  gave  way 
long  before  the  shattering  blows  of  the  Reformation. 

Viewing  the  Literature  of  the  later  Middle  Ages  as  a  whole, 
one  is  particularly  struck  by  its  singular  variety  and  richness. 
Germanic  poetry  had  degenerated  in  the  age  preceding  into  a 
senile  mouthing  of  meaningless  alliterative  formulas.  It  had 
little  true  originality;  it  could  not  store  new  wine  save  in  old 
bottles,  and  the  later  vintages  were  indeed  tasteless.  When 
Christianity  came,  there  were  no  poets  to  give  it  fitting  expres- 
sion. Caedmon  and  Cynewulf,  if  we  may  allow  these  names 
to  stand  for  their  respective  schools,  produced  incongruous 
work.  The  poetic  stock-in-trade  of  Germanic  heathendom 
was  ill  suited  to  Biblical  stories  or  to  the  lives  of  saints  and 
martyrs.  The  Continental  Saxon  epic,  the  "  Heliand,"  written 
some  two  centuries  before  the  Conquest,  represented  no  ad- 
vance in  poetry.  The  rise  of  scaldic  verse  in  Scandinavia 
marks  the  waning  of  the  heroic  spirit  of  the  "  Edda."  While 
the  new  learning  within  the  Church  was  producing  much  that 
was  valuable,  the  Literature  of  Western  Europe  in  the  tenth 
and  eleventh  centuries  was  constricted  indeed  as  compared 
with  what  followed.  The  new  Romantic  spirit,  however, 
brought  with  it  an  intense  interest  in  a  great  variety  of  sub- 
jects. Stories' were  drawn  from  every  quarter  of  the  known 
world,  —  from  the  Celtic  peoples,  from  the  classics,  from  the 
East.  The  old  poetic  technic  was  discarded;  the  bard  now 
played  a  lyre  of  many  strings.     The  thirst  for  learning  was 


THE   MIDDLE   AGES  151 

insatiable;  it  was  a  bishop  of  the  fourteenth  century  who 
wrote,  "A  library  of  wisdom  is  more  precious  than  all  wealth, 
and  all  things  that  are  desirable  cannot  be  compared  with  it." 
This  abundance  of  material  gives  the  age  an  appearance  of 
confusion  which  goes  far  toward  explaining  our  ancestors' 
notion  of  it  as  a  literary  chaos.  Classification,  even  to-day,  is 
a  task  of  the  greatest  difficulty.  The  individual  author 
counted  for  little ;  it  was  seldom  that  he  told  his  name.  Pos- 
sibly the  striking  absence  of  the  personal  element  in  medieval 
letters  is  due  to  the  fact  that  they  were  so  largely  in  the  hands 
of  men  under  ecclesiastical  rule.  The  Church  discouraged 
individuality,  and  emphasized  tradition  and  authority.  So 
it  was  with  Literature.  A  medieval  author  was  far  more 
willing  to  attribute  the  best  elements  in  his  work  to  some 
well-known  writer  dead  and  gone  than  to  claim  them  himself. 
The  notable  exceptions  are  authors  standing  outside  the 
Church,  —  minstrels  like  Chretien,  for  example.  And  one 
can  forgive  the  feminine  pride  of  the  authoress  of  the  charm- 
ing Breton  lais  when  she  says,  ''I  will  tell  my  name  that 
I  may  be  remembered;  I  am  called  Marie,  and  I  am  of  France." 
Such  exceptions  prove  the  rule  of  anonymity.  Classification 
of  this  enormous  mass  of  Literature  by  types  is  almost  equally 
difficult,  since  this  kaleidoscopic  array  of  poetry  and  prose 
is  constantly  shifting  and  recombining,  the  lights  from  one 
group  coloring  another,  stray  fragments  becoming  detached 
and  coalescing  anew,  in  a  different  pattern.  Here  again  the 
influence  of  the  Church  is  prominent.  Since  her  business  was 
with  all  men,  she  stood  as  a  link  between  the  gentle  and  the 
lowly,  helped  each  to  perpetuate  their  songs  and  stories,  and 
lent  to  each  her  aid  in  the  more  serious  branches  of  letters. 
In  short,  so  varied  and  inconstant  is  this  mass  of  material 
that  one  is  sometimes  tempted  to  agree  with  the  Italian  critic 
Croce,  who  maintained  the  arrangement  of  literary  produc- 
tions according  to  types  to  be  an  impossibility. 

And  so  the  attempt  to  trace  even  the  most  prominent  char-. 


152  THE  MIDDLE   AGES 

acteristics  of  this  period  in  a  single  hour  becomes  absurd. 
A  realization  of  the  attitude  with  which  we  ought  to  approach 
it  is  perhaps  most  necessary,  and  this  I  have  attempted  to 
suggest ;  that  we  are  to  expect  in  the  poetry  of  the  aristocracy 
a  reflection  of  their  new  social  ideals,  of  their  love  of  magnifi- 
cence, of  their  formality  and  artificiality;  in  the  poetry  of 
the  people  a  freedom  and  emotional  quality  now  appearing 
as  tragic  pathos  and  now  as  pure  comedy;  in  the  Church, 
which  cultivated  every  form  of  letters,  both  a  reflection  of  the 
simplicity  of  popular  literature  and  a  tendency  to  theological 
subtlety,  and  all  too  often  the  blighting  chill  of  a  dreary 
didacticism. 

In  any  survey  of  Medieval  Literature  we  are  forced  to 
speak  harshly  of  it  now  and  then.  It  is  often  lacking  in  re- 
straint and  proportion.  Never  was  there  a  greater  passion 
for  telling  everything  and  a  little  more  too.  Never  was  there 
less  sense  of  historical  perspective;  medieval,  classical,  and 
Biblical  heroes  and  heroines  ran  joyously  along  side  by  side. 
Time  and  space  were  forgotten.  Medieval  literature  is  like 
medieval  painting,  out  of  perspective  and  proportion,  the  men 
and  women  as  tall  as  the  towers,  all  sides  of  the  castle  visible 
at  once,  God  in  the  heavens  above,  and  the  yawning  jaws  of 
Hell  below.  Despite  all  this,  there  is  a  wonderful  fascination 
about  seeing  the  world  at  an  angle  so  different  from  our  own. 
Such  was  the  universe  to  the  medieval  man,  and  if  we  put  our- 
selves thoroughly  in  sympathy  with  his  point  of  view,  we  gain 
something  of  an  experience  wholly  new,  the  sensation  of  living 
in  another  age  than  our  own.  In  closing,  then,  it  is  this 
strange  charm,  this  fascination  about  the  Middle  Ages  which 
I  would  emphasize.  Critics  are  perfectly  right  in  saying  that 
there  is  too  little  romance  as  we  commonly  conceive  it  in  the 
period  of  chivalry,  too  little  of  the  poet's  vision  of 

*' Charm 'd  magic  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn." 


THE   MIDDLE   AGES  153 

It  is,  indeed,  often  an  awkward  and  creaky  universe  that  we 
behold,  but  it  has  its  spell,  nevertheless,  and  this,  once  felt, 
is  not  soon  forgotten.  Its  incongruities,  its  artistic  lapses, 
fade  in  the  magnificence  of  the  whole,  as  in  a  cathedral  the 
cramped  figures  in  the  separate  panes  of  a  great  rose-window 
are  lost  in  the  splendor  of  its  brilliant  coloring, 

"I  walked  in  an  enchanted  land, 
Chaucer  and  Dante  took  my  hand ; 
I  saw  the  garden  kept  by  Mirth, 
I  heard  Crusaders  shake  the  earth ; 
Scotus  and  Bernard  guided  me 
To  pierce  beyond  mortality ; 
I  burst  the  fetters  of  the  years, 
And  knew  the  music  of  the  spheres. 


And  faintly  yet  the  visions  stay 
To  shame  the  garish  world  to-day." 


VIII 

THE  RENAISSANCE 

By  Jefferson  B.  Fletcher,  Professor  of  Comparative 
Literature 

"Out  of  this  thick  Gothic  night,  our  eyes  are  opened  to  the 
glorious  torch  of  the  sun,"  So  at  the  dawning  of  the  sixteenth 
century  wrote  Frangois  Rabelais;  so  felt  the  illuminated  ones 
of  his  generation.  To  their  eyes,  dazzled  by  unaccustomed 
light,  the  nearer  past  seemed  darker  than  it  really  was;  they 
saw  the  Middle  Ages  stretching  as  a  shadow  between  them 
and  the  effulgence  of  the  antique  world;  men,  they  thought, 
were  one  long  "sleep"  away  from  true  civilization. 

Their  fallacy  of  vision  is  obvious  to  us.  My  predecessor 
in  this  course  has  shown  how  far  from  "thick"  or  nocturnal 
was  that  medieval,  or  "Gothic,"  atmosphere.  I  need  not 
retell  his  tale.  Yet  while  Rabelais  exaggerated  the  chiaro- 
scuro of  his  contrast,  contrast  there  nevertheless  was.  To 
pass  in  thought  from  the  medieval  mood  to  the  Renaissance 
mood  is  like  passing  with  the  eye  from  band  to  band  of  color 
in  a  rainbow;  as  the  eye  travels,  brightest  yellow  leads  by 
imperceptible  gradation  to  purest  green.  Just  where  yellow 
leaves  off,  and  green  begins,  is  hard  to  say ;  but  that  the  color 
so  changes  only  the  color-blind  would  deny.  So  is  it  with 
successive  stages  of  civilization.  The  color  of  the  common 
life  changes,  constantly  but  imperceptibly,  from  moment  to 
moment.  Looking  backward,  we  can  see  that,  so  to  speak, 
green  has  succeeded  to  yellow;  but  we  can  see  the  epochal 
colors  at  all  only  at  long  range.     To  mark  off  the  Renaissance 

155 


156  THE   RENAISSANCE 

by  precise  dates  would  be  about  as  hopeful  an  undertaking  as 
to  measure  the  green  band  of  a  rainbow  with  a  footrule  and 
an  aeroplane.  Enough  for  the  moment  to  say  that  by  Re- 
naissance color  is  meant  the  color  of  European  civilization  dur- 
ing, broadly  speaking,  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries. 

As  Rabelais  implies,  the  Renaissance  felt  itself  to  be,  in 
some  sense  or  other,  the  rebirth  of  a  spirit  that  had  been  dead, 
or  sleeping,  since  Rome  fell  before  the  northern  barbarians. 
For  a  thousand  years  the  barbarian  spirit  had  prevailed;  but 
now 

"Magnus  ab  integro  saeclorum  nascitur  ordo. 

Redeunt  Saturnia  regna." 

"The  great  cycle  of  the  centuries  returns  upon  itself;  the 
Saturnian,  the  golden  antique,  age  is  come  again. "  Such  was 
the  faith.  What  led  to  it?  Why,  justly  or  not,  did  Rabelais, 
Christian  as  he  called  himself,  dub  these  ten  centuries  of 
Christianity  a  "thick  Gothic  night,"  a  night  of  ignorance  and 
barbarism  ? 

To  answer  these  two  questions  fully  is  to  define  the  ideals 
of  the  Renaissance. 

To  the  first,  the  answer  at  long  range  is  in  the  paradox  that 
the  Renaissance  faith  in  the  possible  revival  of  antiquity 
sprang  from  a  denial  of  the  persistent  faith  of  the  Middle 
Ages  that  antiquity  had  never  died.  The  German  barbarians 
disrupted  the  Roman  Empire  without  meaning  to  disrupt  it, 
or  realizing  that  they  had  disrupted  it.  All  they  wanted  was 
land  and  booty  and  glory;  the  splendor  of  Roman  civilization 
itself  awed  and  won  them ;  they  preserved  that  civilization  by 
adapting  themselves  to  it,  or  they  thought  that  they  preserved 
it.  They  ruled  where  Rome  had  ruled,  calling  themselves 
Romans,  pretending  themselves  the  legitimate  successors  of 
the  Caesars,  "as  if,"  as  Petrarch  scornfully  exclaimed  later, 
"saying  so  made  it  so!"  This  "legitimist  illusion"  deceived 
the  whole  Middle  Ages.     Dante  urged  its  divine  right,  alleg- 


THE   RENAISSANCE  157 

ing  that  "Christ  dying  confirmed  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Roman 
Empire  over  the  whole  human  race."  And  in  the  "Divine 
Comedy,"  the  Emperor  Justinian  celebrates  the  triumphal 
progress  of  the  Roman  Eagle  from  ^neas  to  Charlemagne, 
and  prophesies  the  perpetuity  of  its  glory. 

As  the  Middle  Ages  held  to  the  unbroken  continuance  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  so  they  held  to  the  Roman  Law  as  their  com- 
man  law,  to  the  Roman  language  as  their  common  language, 
believing  Latin  what  Dante  sought  to  make  his  "noble  verna- 
cular" ^ —  "illustrious,  cardinal,  courtly,  and  curial." 

This  medieval  legitimist  illusion  was  possible,  however,  only 
in  the  shadow  of  ignorance  of  what  had  been  the  real  Roman 
State.  The  conquest  of  the  real  Roman  Empire  by  Teutonic 
barbarians  had  meant  the  interpenetration  of  two  peoples, 
of  two  forms  of  family  and  society.  The  resulting  social  web 
was  woven,  warp  and  woof,  of  these  two  diverse  threads,  and 
it  changes  in  color  as  one  or  the  other  thread  here  or  there 
thickens;  but  in  the  shadow  of  historical  ignorance  the  party- 
coloring  of  the  social  pattern  was  invisible;  past  and  present, 
Roman  and  German,  blended  into  one  monochromatic  blur. 
When  a  warrant  of  legitimacy  was  wanting  and  wanted,  it 
was  forged,  like  the  documentary  "Donation of  Constantine " ; 
where  a  record  of  antiquity  showed  contrary  to  current  prej- 
udice or  opinion,  a  corrective  subintention  was  read  into 
it.  So  might  Ovid's  "Art  of  Love"  be  construed  as  an 
allegory  of  love  divine,  and  be  dedicated  to  the  Virgin  Mary, 
So  came  the  antique  formulas  of  life  to  be  "  gothicized " ; 
antique  law,  at  least  in  Italy,  to  be  feudalized ;  antique  litera- 
ture to  be  moralized;  antique  language  to  be  barbarized. 

The  Renaissance  was,  in  the  first  instance,  a  realization 
that  this  medieval  faith  in  the  perpetuance  of  the  Roman 
Empire  was  an  illusion;  in  the  second  instance,  an  aspiration 
to  make  the  illusion  a  reality,  to  revive  the  Roman  State, 
though  preferably  the  Roman  Republican  State,  as  it  had 
been,  unpolluted  by  barbarian  commixture.     The  realization. 


158  THE  RENAISSANCE 

the  aspiration,  was  Italian.  However  much  German  emperors 
might  boast  themselves  legitimate  successors  of  the  Csesars, 
Italians  felt  themselves  the  sole  blood-heirs  of  the  Romans; 
the  Imperial  City  was  their  birthright.  One  day  yet,  as  their 
poet  sang:  — 

"  Prowess  against  savagery 
Shall  take  up  arms ;  and  the  battle  be  quick-sped ; 
For  the  ancient  bravery 
In  our  Italian  hearts  is  not  yet  dead." 

Even  while  Dante,  in  his  idealist  illusion  was  hailing  Henry 
the  Luxemburger  as  "the  most  clement  Henry,  Divine,  Au- 
gustus, and  Caesar,"  his  fellow-Florentines  at  home  were  urg- 
ing Robert  of  Sicily  to  make  no  terms  with  that  upstart 
"German  King."  For  them  that  "German  King"  was  but  a 
make-believe  Caesar,  an  up-country  ass  in  the  imperial  lion's 
skin.  Vainly  might  Dante  reproach  them,  for  that  they 
"first  and  alone  .  .  .  have  raged  against  the  glory  of  the 
Roman  prince,  the  monarch  of  the  earth  and  the  ambassador 
of  God  .  .  .  and,  deserting  the  legitimate  government,  seek 
like  new  Babylonians  to  found  new  kingdoms,  in  order  that 
the  Florentine  may  be  one  polity  and  the  Roman  another." 

Dante  was  mistaken.  The  Florentines  were  not  standing 
out  in  order  that  the  Florentine  might  be  one  polity  and  the 
Roman  another;  it  was  the  German  polity  from  which  they 
argued  secession.  They  wrote  to  their  Brescian  allies:  "The 
Latins  must  always  hold  the  Germans  in  enmity,  seeing  that 
they  are  opposed  in  act  and  deed,  in  manners  and  soul;  not 
only  is  it  impossible  to  serve,  but  even  to  hold  any  intercourse 
with  that  race."  This  is  the  sentiment  that  inspired  the 
Latinistic  revival  in  Italy.  Four  decades  after  this  letter  was 
written,  Petrarch  in  1351  exhorts  not  merely  to  secession,  but 
to  a  reconquest  of  the  Empire  by  Latins.  This  bolder  dream 
of  what  may  be  called  Pan-Latinism  was  revealed  in  a  letter 
to  the  "Roman  People,"  who  are  urged  to  intervene  in  the 


THE   RENAISSANCE  159 

trial  of  the  luckless  Rienzi.  "Invincible  people,"  wrote 
Petrarch,  "to  whom  I  belong.  Conquerors  of  the  Nations  ! 
.  .  .  The  supreme  crime  with  which  [your  former  Tribune]  is 
charged  ...  is  that  he  dared  affirm  that  the  Roman  Empire 
is  still  at  Rome,  and  in  possession  of  the  Roman  people.  .  .  . 
If  the  Roman  Empire  is  not  at  Rome,  pray  where  is  it  ?  If  it 
is  anywhere  else  than  at  Rome  it  is  no  longer  the  Empire  of 
the  Romans,  but  belongs  to  those  with  whom  an  erratic  fate 
has  left  it.  .  .  .  But  believe  me,  if  a  drop  of  the  old  blood  still 
flows  in  your  veins,  you  may  yet  enjoy  no  little  majesty  and  no 
trifling  authority.  .  .  .  You  have  but  to  speak  as  one;  let 
the  world  realize  that  the  Roman  people  has  but  a  single 
voice,  and  no  one  will  reject  or  scorn  their  words;  every  one 
will  respect  or  fear  them." 

Illusion  for  illusion;  no  legitimist  pretension  of  German 
Caesar  could  be  more  fantastic  than  this  naive  taking  of  the 
mongrel  and  helpless  populace  of  medieval  Rome  for  the 
Populus  Romanus,  the  "invincible"  Roman  people;  as  well 
call  a  nettle  a  rose  for  growing  where  a  rose  once  grew.  Such 
self-deception  as  Rienzi's  and  Petrarch's  could  not  last;  yet 
the  enthusiasm  of  Petrarch  was  contagious;  and  the  Italians 
were  infection-ripe.  If  not  materially,  at  least  spiritually, 
they  might,  so  they  dreamed,  reenter  into  the  heritage  of  their 
forefathers,  might  be  again  an  "invincible  people,"  the  Roman 
people  reborn.  "We  have  lost  Rome,"  wrote  Lorenzo  Valla 
two  generations  after  Petrarch,  "we  have  lost  our  dominion, 
we  have  lost  our  possessions,  through  fault  not  of  ourselves 
indeed,  but  of  the  times;  yet  by  a  more  splendid  supremacy 
we  rule  even  now  the  greater  part  of  the  earth.  Ours  is  Italy, 
ours  France,  ours  Spain,  Germany,  .  .  .  and  many  other 
nations.  For  there  the  Roman  empire  is,  wherever  the 
Roman  language  prevails." 

The  so-called  "revival  of  learning"  in  Italy  was  not  for  the 
mere  sake  of  learning.     Browning's  "Grammarian," 

"  Soul-hydroptic  with  a  sacred  thirst" 


160  THE   RENAISSANCE 

of  knowledge,  is  false  to  the  type  Browning  meant  to  depict. 
For  no  Faustus-like  curiosity  the  Italian  grammarians  of  the 
fifteenth  century  grew  lean  over  " hoti"  and  the  "enclitic  de." 
They  sought  with  passionate  eagerness  from  old  books  no  mere 
knowledge  of  old  books,  but  recovery  of  an  old  life,  poring 
over  the  records  of  antiquity  as  a  man  whose  thread  of  mem- 
ory has  been  snapped  might  seek  from  old  letters  and  diaries 
to  tie  together  his  present  and  past  selves.  When  the  anti- 
quary Ciriac  of  Ancona  was  asked  why  he  spent  his  substance 
and  risked  his  life  in  far  journeyings  to  gather  musty  manu- 
scripts and  broken  bits  of  carved  stone,  he  is  said  to  have 
replied,  "I  go  to  awake  the  dead." 

"There  the  Roman  Empire  is,  wherever  the  Roman  lan- 
guage prevails."  These  proud  words  were  addressed  by  a 
grammarian  to  fellow-grammarians,  quirites  of  the  new 
Rome,  indeed  "not  the  seat  of  empire,  but  the  mother  of 
letters. "  "  Shall  ye  suffer,  O  Quirites,  your  city  to  be  captured 
by  the  Gauls,  Latinity  to  be  corrupted  by  barbarism?" 
Valla's  appeal  was  heard.  These  patriot-grammarians  de- 
clared themselves,  and  were  accepted  as  truly  the  quirites 
of  the  city  of  culture,  custodians,  like  the  Brahmin  priest- 
hood, of  a  sacred  speech,  key  to  the  past  and,  as  they  confi- 
dently believed,  to  the  future.  For  Dante,  only  a  Pope  might 
say, 

"Heaven  I  can  unlock  and  lock  again, 

As  thou  dost  know;  for  mine  are  the  two  keys." 

But  the  grammarian  Filelfo  coolly  claims  the  key  to  a  rival 
immortality;  "I  am  one  of  those  who  celebrating  with  elo- 
quence illustrious  deeds  render  immortal  those  who,  by  nature, 
are  mortal."  Well  might  the  future  Pope  Pius  II  write  to 
an  English  bishop:  "Great  is  Eloquence;  nothing  so  much 
rules  the  world."  Eloquence,  especially  Ciceronian  and  Ver- 
gilian  eloquence,  became  the  common  aspiration  of  articulate 
Europe;  Valla's  dream  of  a  Pan-Latinistic  empire  of  the  spirit 


THE   RENAISSANCE  161 

was  well-nigh  realized:  "the  Word  was  with  Rome,  and  the 
Word  was  God."  In  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century 
Latin  Eloquence  received  one  more  interesting  apotheosis, 
and  illustration,  from  an  Englishman,  Gabriel  Harvey,  Spen- 
ser's friend.  His  pride  is  not  merely  patriotic,  but  almost 
religious.  "Behold,"  he  exclaims  (though  not  in  plain,  or 
rather  base,  English),  "Behold  (not  unexpectedly)  Her  whom 
ye  so  much  desire,  for  the  sake  of  seeing  whom  ye  so  eagerly 
flock  together,  upon  whom  in  hope  and  mind  you  have  fixed 
most  constant  eyes  so  long  —  of  incredible  majesty,  in 
royal  attire,  of  almost  angelic  aspect,  my  most  illustrious 
Hera,  my  most  august  Heroine,  ELOQUENCE,  a  divine  crea- 
ture. .  .  .  See,  by  the  immortal  God,  how  beautiful  she  is  ! 
...  I  pass  over  her  golden  hair,  and  her  curled  locks;  I  pass 
over  her  serene  and  most  lovely  brow;  I  pass  over  her  shining 
eyes  and  dark-colored  eyelids;  I  pass  ..."  well,  he  passes 
over  several  other  things  to  "cry  out,  like  the  lover  in  the  comic 
poet:  O  lovely  face!  henceforth  I  blot  out  all  other  women 
from  my  mind;  I  am  weary  of  these  everyday  forms." 

So  "weary  of  these  everyday  forms,"  Boccaccio  had  de- 
clared that  "composition  in  the  vulgar  tongue  cannot  make 
the  man-of-letters ' ' ;  and  he  came  to  blush  for  his ' '  Decameron ' ' 
not  because  its  moral  tone,  but  because  its  vernacular,  was 
base.  At  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century,  Dante  him- 
self was  relegated  by  a  Florentine  man-of-letters  to  the  com- 
pany of  "butchers,  bakers,  and  candlestick-makers,"  "for 
by  his  choice  of  language  he  seems  to  have  wished  to  be  the 
intimate  of  such  folk."  With  the  gradual  withdrawal  of  the 
nations  into  their  own  boundaries,  however,  national  pride 
began  to  assert  the  national  against  the  imperial,  the  Latin 
eloquence.  In  the  late  fifteenth  and  early  sixteenth  centuries 
echoes  of  Dante's  plea  for  the  "noble  vernacular"  made  them- 
selves heard  in  every  country.  But  the  "noble  vernaculars" 
must  still  disdain  "everyday  forms"  of  speech,  must  receive 
their  accolades  of  ennoblement  from  the  classic  "grammars," 


162  THE   RENAISSANCE 

and  so  become  classic  vernaculars.  The  contention  was  the 
opposite  of  Wordsworth's;  literary  language  was  to  be  a 
special  mintage  of  classically  trained  artists,  and  no  mere 
matter  of  common  currency;  was  to  be,  as  Dante  said,  a 
"secondary  speech,"  not  acquired  "without  any  rule,  by  imi- 
tating our  nurses,"  but  by  conscious  eclectic  art.  "The  ver- 
nacular," says  Dante,  "followeth  use  and  the  Latin  Art." 
When  Edmund  Spenser,  as  Ben  Jonson  declared,  "in  affecting 
the  ancients,  writ  no  language,"  he  was  but  following  the 
Renaissance  tradition,  begun  with  Dante,  of  so  compounding 
"the  illustrious,  cardinal,  courtly,  and  curial  language"  in 
England,  the  Platonic  Idea  of  English,  in  which  all  customary 
English  participates,  and  to  which,  as  it  were,  all  customary 
English  aspires.  By  such  indirection.  Valla's  oracle,  "there 
the  Roman  Empire  is,  wherever  the  Roman  language  pre- 
vails," came  true;  in  all  the  nations  throughout  the  Renais- 
sance, this  ideal  of  the  Roman  language  as  an  "artefact"  pre- 
vailed, and  was  followed  by  literary  reformers  of  the  national 
tongues.  The  first  great  literary  achievement  of  the  Renais- 
sance was  the  refining  of  language,  the  literary  medium,  ac- 
cording to  the  canons  of  the  classics,  and  as  a  fine  art.  Thus 
it  happened  that  an  Italian  patriotic  revival  passed  into 
general  esthetic  reform. 

For  their  profession  of  "humane  letters"  (literce  humaniores) 
the  Italian  grammarians,  at  least  by  the  beginning  of  the  six- 
teenth centur}'",  were  called  umanisti  or  Humanists.  Whether 
originally  or  not.  Humanism,  the  profession  of  the  "human- 
ities," came  to  be  considered  as  dividing  with  theology,  or 
"divinity,"  the  field  of  knowledge.  Thus  in  1483  Caxton 
speaks  of  one  who  "floured  in  double  science  .  .  .  that  is  to 
saye,  dyuynyte  and  humanyte";  and  in  1596  Sir  John  Haring- 
ton  declares  of  a  certain  person,  "I  might  repute  him  as  a 
good  Humanist,  but  I  should  ever  doubt  him  as  a  good  De- 
vine."  In  the  latent  conflict  between  Humanism  and 
Divinity,  between  the  worldly  and  the  other-worldly  concerns 


THE   RENAISSANCE  163 

of  men,  lies,  I  think,  the  answer  to  the  second  of  my  original 
questions:  Why  did  Christian  Rabelais  stigmatize  the  ten 
Christian  centuries  before  him  as  "a  thick  Gothic  night"? 

In  Grteco-Roman  Literature  the  Humanists,  reading  with 
a  new  open-mindedness,  found  a  valuation  of  human  life 
strangely  at  variance  with  that  of  medieval  Christianity.  Be- 
tween the  angelic  announcement  of  "On  earth  peace,  good  will 
towards  men"  and  highest  pagan  thought  might  indeed  be  no 
essential  disparity.  Vergil's  Messianic  Eclogue  made  a  strik- 
ingly similar  announcement,  and  actually  was  supposed  to 
have  unwittingly  intended  the  Christ,  Vergil  being,  as  Dante 
makes  the  converted  Statius  declare, 

"like  one  who  goes  by  night, 
Carrying  the  light  behind  him,  self-unserved. 
But  making  all  who  follow  after  wise." 

Socrates,  again,  as  well  as  Jesus,  had  affirmed  love  to  be  the 
sun  of  wisdom  and  the  source  of  good.  But  whatever  of 
ascetic  morality  and  of  transcendental  mysticism  may  have 
been  implicit  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus  himself,  these  moods  of 
negation  had  become  later  dominant  in  Christian  doctrine. 
Early  persecution,  and  afterwards  the  continuing  miseries  of 
barbarian  conquest,  had  made  this  world  seem  to  civilized 
Europeans  a  place  of  horror.  To  ignore  it,  to  yearn  to  es- 
cape from  it  into  the  promised  peace,  were  counsels  perhaps 
less  of  perfection  than  of  desperation.  The  vengeance  of  God 
was  invoked  upon  the  persecutor,  being  the  only  vengeance 
possible.  The  thought  of  Hell  was  a  comfort  to  outraged  im- 
potence; sight  of  God's  enemies,  and  their  own,  tortured  ever- 
lastingly was  not  the  least  of  the  anticipated  joys  of  paradise. 
But  the  mischief  returned  upon  the  heads  of  those  who  had 
devised  it;  like  a  child,  scared  by  its  own  make-beUeve,  Chris- 
tendom quailed  before  the  monstrous  horror  of  its  own  im- 
agining; its  age-long  anxiety  was  to  avoid  falling  into  the 
spectral  pit  it  had,  in  fancy,  dug  for  its  enemies.     And  its 


164  THE   RENAISSANCE 

moralists  were  quick  to  use  this  terror  for  edifying  ends;  they 
taught  that  the  fear  of  Hell  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom;  they 
particularized  infernal  punishments  with  unction.  This 
world  becomes  a  trap  to  catch  the  unwary;  while  there  is 
life,  there  is  danger.  Parallel-wise,  and  almost  from  its  begin- 
nings, Christianity,  further  to  aggravate  a  morbid  distrust  of 
life,  had  absorbed  mystic  and  ascetic  doctrines  originating  in 
Oriental  minds.  "Man  is  a  spirit  dragging  around  a  corpse," 
Plotinus  of  Alexandria  had  said  in  Rome  two  centuries  after 
Saint  Paul  had  taught  there;  Christian  Europe  went  on  repeat- 
ing the  saying,  and  like  sayings,  and  Christian  fanatics  did 
their  best  to  make  such  sayings  come  true.  Burdened  with 
the  body  as  so  very  literally  a  dead  weight,  no  wonder  the  con- 
sistent medieval  soul  preferred  the  contemplative  to  the  active 
life. 

"Imitation  of  Christ"  thus  meant  renunciation  of  the  in- 
terests of  this  world.  "Truly,"  exclaims  Thomas  a  Kempis, 
"truly  it  is  misery  even  to  live  upon  the  earth."  "Thou  art 
deceived,"  he  declares,  "thou  art  deceived  if  thou  seek  any 
other  thing  than  to  suffer  tribulations."  No  natural  impulse 
is  other  than  evil;  therefore  his  conclusion  that  "the  more 
nature  is  depressed  and  subdued,  so  much  the  more  is  grace 
infused."  Now  the  burghers  of  the  free  Communes  of  Italy, 
hard-headed,  practical  business  men, 

"  Men  of  the  world  who  know  the  world  like  men," 

might,  so  long  as  they  remained  merely  business  men,  listen 
to  such  doctrine  with  indifferent  docility;  even  talk  it  them- 
selves —  business  men  are  conservative  —  on  Sundays.  But 
as  the  infection  of  pagan  ideas  spread,  as  these  burghers  listened 
to  Humanists,  or  became  Humanists,  they  found  aligned  against 
such  ascetic  renouncements  and  mystic  prostrations  not  only 
the  standards  of  life  they  really  lived  by,  but  backing  up  these 
standards  of  theirs  all  the  sanity  of  Rome,  all  the  graciousness 
of  Greece.     These  democratic  Italians  had  learned  to  ignore, 


THE   RENAISSANCE  165 

when  they  chose,  constituted  authority;  they  were  too  far 
away  from  the  Emperor,  too  close  to  the  Pope,  to  stand  in  awe 
of  either;  and  both  Powers  were  in  the  Communes'  debt.  In 
Italy  thought  and  speech  were  free  this  side  heresy,  and  the 
borders  of  heresy  were  not  over-vigilantly  patrolled.  Wlien 
in  1433  Lorenzo  Valla,  in  his  dialogue  "On  Pleasure,  or  the 
Highest  Good,"  transparently  preferred  pagan  joy-of-life 
before  medieval  Christian  distrust-of-life,  there  was  no  official 
censure.  Valla's  argument  has  paradoxes  worthy  of  Bernard 
Shaw,  audacities  manifestly  pour  epater  le  bourgeois;  but  his 
central  idea  is  serious  and  significant.  Men  naturally  seek, 
he  argues,  not  "tribulations,"  but  pleasure;  and  whatever 
is  really  and  truly  natural,  is  right :  "  what  Nature  has  created 
and  shaped  cannot  be  other  than  right  and  praiseworthy." 
On  this  sentence  hang  the  law  and  the  prophets  of  the  Renais- 
sance, indeed  of  Modernism.  The  Utopians,  those  most  typi- 
cally Renaissance  folk,  reaffirm  it;  "they  define  virtue  thus," 
Sir  Thomas  More  tells  us,  "that  it  is  a  living  according  to 
Nature,"  and  "they  imagine  that  Nature  prompts  all  people 
on  to  seek  after  pleasure  as  the  end  of  all  they  do."  "Physis 
(that  is  to  say,  Nature),"  writes  Rabelais,  "at  her  first  burthen 
begat  beauty  and  harmony,  being  of  herself  very  fruitful. 
Antiphysis  (who  ever  was  the  counterpart  of  Nature),  imme- 
diately, out  of  a  malicious  spite  against  her  for  beautiful  and 
honorable  productions,  in  opposition,  begot  Amodunt  and 
Dissonance,"  who,  as  Rabelais  amusingly  describes  them, 
went  counter  to  normal  humanity,  to  Nature's  offspring,  in 
every  respect.  "Their  heads  were  round  like  a  foot-ball,  and 
not  gently  flapped  on  both  sides,  like  the  common  shape  of 
men.  Their  ears  stood  pricked  up,  like  those  of  asses;  their 
eyes  as  hard  as  those  of  crabs,  and  without  brows,  stared  out 
of  their  heads,  fixed  on  bones  like  those  of  our  heels;  their  feet 
were  round  fike  tennis  balls;  their  arms  and  hands  turned 
backwards  towards  the  shoulders;  and  they  walked  on  their 
heads,  continually  turning  round  like  a  ball,  topsy-turvy,  heels 


IQQ  THE   RENAISSANCE 

over  head."  True  type  of  the  children  of  Nature,  begot  in 
"beauty  and  harmony,"  is  Pantagruel  himself,  the  "all- 
thirsty,"  as  Rabelais  says  his  name  implies,  born  when  "the 
world  was  a-dry."  It  is  natural  and  right  to  be  all-thirsty 
for  life,  to  be  "good  Pantagruelists,  that  is  to  say,  to  live  in 
peace,  joy,  health,  and  be  always  of  good  cheer." 

This  doctrine  of  good  cheer  was  by  no  means  merely  a  re- 
turn to  paganism.  Pagan  thought  doubtless  helped  to  inspire 
it;  some  who  preached  it  were  at  heart  virtually  pagan;  but  in 
Rabelais,  and  in  the  greater  men  of  the  sixteenth  century,  it 
meant  simply  a  cheerful,  manlier  Christianity.  To  this  re- 
formed Christianity  Death  is  no  longer  the  scarecrow  mon- 
ster of  the  "Danse  macabre."  To  Ronsard  Death  appears 
as  the  benignant  surgeon  of  the  soul:  — 

"I  salute  thee,  glad  and  profitable  Death ! " 

Francis  of  Assisi  indeed  had  also  said :  — 

"  Praised  be  thou,  Lord,  for  our  sister  corporal  death !  " 

But  Saint  Francis  speaks  for  himself;  Ronsard  for  an  age  of 
hope.  To  the  dreary  refrain  of  the  late  Middle  Ages,  "Fear 
of  death  perturbeth  me,"  Ben  Jonson  sturdily  retorts:  — 

"He  that  fears  death  or  mourns  it  in  the  just, 
Shows  of  the  Resurrection  little  trust." 

Shakspere,  no  more  than  Dante,  doubts  that  "man  is  made 
eternal " :  — 

"So  shalt  thou  feed  on  Death,  that  feeds  on  men, 
And  Death  once  dead,  there's  no  more  dying  then." 

But  Shakspere's  interest  is  all  with  the  actual  humanity,  not 
with  the  potential  divinity,  of  mankind;  his  ideal,  the  Renais- 
sance ideal,  is  the  realization  by  man  of  full  manhood.  His 
highest  tribute  to  a  human  being  was  to  affirm  perfect  hu- 
manity, to  say  that 


THE  RENAISSANCE  167 

"His  life  was  gentle,  and  the  elements 
So  mix'd  in  him  that  Nature  might  stand  up 
And  say  to  all  the  world,  'This  was  a  man  ! ' " 

To  deny  Nature,  to  strain  above  her,  to  seek,  a  second 
Adam,  to  be  as  God,  —  such  had  been  the  aspiration  of  eremite 
and  monk  and  mystic ;  such  to  the  Renaissance  seemed  a  pre- 
sumption not  of  rising  above,  but  of  falling  below,  Nature; 
and  an  Italian  poet  of  the  Renaissance  so  declares :  — 

"I  am  a  man,  and  pride  m^^self 
On  being  human.  .  .  .     And  if  perchance  that  name 
You  hold  in  scorn,  take  care 
Lest,  making  you  unhuman, 
You  grow  not  more  a  monster  than  a  god. " 

This  is  not  paganism,  not  a  worship  of  false  gods,  not  a 
denial  of  God,  but  the  conviction  that  man's  present  business 
is  to  live  his  life  as  roundly,  bravely,  beautifully,  as  he  can, 
leaving  the  rest  to  God;   that  such 

"  Virtue's  a  faint  green  sickness  of  brave  souls," 

as  womanishly  shrinks  from  life;  that  true  virtue  should  in 
effect  be  derived  not  only  from  vir,  man,  but  also  from  vis, 
vim.  "Virile  vim"  is  in  fact  not  far  from  what  Renaissance 
Italians  meant  by  virtu,  and  the  meaning,  if  not  the  word, 
was  translated  into  action  throughout  Europe. 

And  this  regained  sense  of  harmony  between  man  and  his 
world  of  action,  between  virtue  and  natural  impulse,  between 
goodness  and  happiness,  was,  I  think,  what  most  of  all  moved 
Rabelais  to  hail  the  dawning  of  a  new  sunshiny  day  for  man- 
kind.    The  gist  of  his  message  is  in  Pippa's  song  :  — 

"The  year's  at  the  spring 
And  day's  at  the  morn  .  .  . 
God's  in  His  heaven  — 
All's  right  with  the  world  ! " 


168  THE   RENAISSANCE 

And  the  darkness  of  the  "thick  Gothic  night"  lay  for  him 

in  its  wailing:  — 

"God's  in  His  heaven," 

far,  far  away;  therefore 

"All's  wrong  with  the  world !" 

No  doubt  Rabelais'  jubilation  —  as  Pippa's  —  was  pre- 
mature. To  his  greeting  of  the  dawn  one  is  tempted  to  retort 
Shakspere's  pensive  antiphony:  — 

"Full  many  a  glorious  morning  have  I  seen  .  .  . 
Anon  permit  the  basest  clouds  to  ride 
With  ugly  rack  on  his  celestial  face." 

For  his  "Abbey  of  Theleme"  Rabelais  could  make  the  rule 
which  was  no  rule,  "Do  as  you  please,"  because  those  only 
admitted  there,  "free,  well-born,  well-bred,  and  conversant 
in  honest  companies,  have  naturally  an  instinct  and  spur  that 
prompteth  them  unto  virtuous  actions,  and  withdraws  them 
from  vice,  which  is  called  honor."  The  Thelemite  idea  was 
good;  but  the  Thelemite  membership  must  have  been  small. 
In  Renaissance  Italy,  however,  many  were  virtual  members 
of  the  Order,  self-elected  and  credentials  waived.  There  the 
career  was  open,  wide  open,  to  all  the  talents,  and  all  the  appe- 
tites. God  had  said  to  Adam,  according  to  Pico  della  Miran- 
dola,  "I  have  made  thee  free  to  shape  thyself  at  thine  own 
sweet  will  (quasi  arhitrarius) .  Thou  mayst  sink  thyself  into 
a  beast;  thou  mayst  uplift  thyself  godlike,  at  thy  choice." 
Italians  were  exercising  this  choice,  thoroughly.  Following 
the  maxim  "Do  as  you  please,"  they  made  themselves 
thorough  saints  and  thorough  devils,  even  thorough  trimmers 
and  moral  weathercocks  joyously  gyrating  with  every  shift  of 
mood.  The  hero  of  the  moment  was  the  virtuoso,  the  man 
thorough  in  whatever  he  undertakes ;  and  the  resulting  society 
of  virtuosi  might  be  compared  to  medieval  society  as  a  fan- 
tastic "  capricdo"  to  a  "plainsong."     Whether  in  thought  or 


THE   RENAISSANCE  169 

action,  the  average  medieval  man  must  play  his  part  in  the 
general  orchestra;  to  change  the  tune  was  treason;  to  get  off 
the  key  heresy.  Now  the  solo  was  the  thing.  Society  was 
indeed  by  no  means,  as  acid  Protestant  reformers  and  some 
rhetorical  historians  would  have  us  believe,  wholly  "off 
color";  it  was  indeed  many-colored,  high-colored.  When 
Roger  Ascham  later  sourly  called  Renaissance  Italy  "Circe's 
Court,"  he  should  at  least  have  remembered  that  also  the 
"wise  Ulysses"  found  "Circe's  Court"  homelike.  Still,  the 
medieval  caution,  "Remember,  man,  that  dust  thou  art,  and 
unto  dust  thou  shalt  return,"  was  very  generally  made  pre- 
miss to  the  conclusion,  therefore  carpe  diem,  Enjoy  thyself 
now;  and  the  syllogism  was  rhymed  by  the  representative 
Lorenzo  the  Magnificent :  — 

"  Youth,  how  beautiful  it  shows, 
Yet  how  little  while  will  tarry ! 
Let  who  would  be,  now  be  merry ; 
Of  To-morrow  no  one  knows." 

It  was  but  filial  for  Lorenzo's  son  to  exclaim  at  his  election, 
"Now  let  us  enjoy  the  papacy  which  God  has  given  us." 
Leo  X  and  his  generation  did  enjoy  it,  to  the  scandal  of  the 
rest  of  Europe.  Contemn  the  pleasures  of  sense  !  had  cried 
Valla,  why,  "the  shame  is,  not  that  we  have  five  senses,  but 
that  we  have  not  fifty."  Certainly,  in  default  of  the  desirable 
fifty,  the  generation  of  Leo  worked  with  tenfold  energy  the 
actual  five,  reflecting  its  life  in  an  Art  and  Literature  like  it- 
self, now  sensuous  and  elegant,  now  sensuous  and  brutal,  but 
whether  elegant  or  brutal,  idealistic  or  realistic,  decorative 
or  didactic,  always  and  in  all  sensuous.  Its  fullest  self-ex- 
pression is  in  pictures;  its  finest  poetry  is  picture-poetry. 
Northern  Europe  surrendered  herself  to  the  sensuous  charm  of 
Italian  art,  accepted  the  new  Italian  Literature  as  a  model 
on  almost  a  parity  with  Grseco-Roman  Literature,  yet  at  the 
same  time  reprehended  the  free  and  sensuous  living  which 


170  THE  RENAISSANCE 

only  could  produce  such  Art  and  Literature.  A  century  nearly 
after  Leo,  Ben  Jonson  was  to  say  of  his  own  time:  — 

"Humor  [individual  caprice]  is  now  the  test  we  try  things  in; 
All  power  is  just;  nought  that  delights  is  sin." 

Luther  —  not  first  indeed,  but  first  effectively  —  so  accused 
Leo  and  his  Italy.  Savonarola,  Erasmus,  orthodox  Catholics 
all  over  Europe,  had  protested  against  Humanism  turned  cynic 
as  well  as  against  asceticism  turned  hypocrite;  but  these  had 
been  reformers  on  the  inside;  Luther  was  revolutionary, 
openly  invading  the  one  "forbidden  land"  of  the  faith,  which 
even  the  audacious  Valla,  "wont  to  spare  no  one,"  had  dared 
to  approach  only  under  the  disguise  of  a  faithful  subject. 
Rabelais  had  said  to  his  Thelemites,  "Do  as  you  please"; 
Luther  in  his  tract  "On  the  Liberty  of  a  Christian  Man"  said 
to  all  his  readers  also,  "Do  as  you  please."  Rabelais  had 
presupposed  the  restraint  of  "honor,"  Luther  presupposed 
the  restraint  of  Scripture;  but  the  religious  restraint  proved 
as  easy  of  evasion  or  waiver  as  the  moral.  And  from  liberty 
turned  license,  Luther,  like  Sir  Thomas  More,  shrank  back. 
Individual  reason,  Luther  came  to  say,  without  knowledge  of 
the  divine  grace,  is  a  "light  that  is  only  darkness,"  "a  poison- 
ous beast  with  many  dragons'  heads,"  "an  ugly  devil's  bride," 
"the  all-cruelest  and  most  fatal  enemy  of  God."  Reaction 
spread ;  for  Protestantism  Calvin,  for  Catholicism  the  Council 
of  Trent,  reasserted  against  the  liberty  of  the  private  con- 
science the  authority,  with  power,  of  dogma. 

In  literature,  conflict  between  liberty  tending  to  license 
and  authority  tending  to  dogma  manifested  itself  parallel- wise. 
Successively,  in  Italy,  France,  England,  Spain,  in  the  genera- 
tions represented  by  Ariosto,  Ronsard,  Spenser,  Lope  de  Vega, 
literature  was  in  a  state  of  unstable  equilibrium,  weighted 
more  or  less  equally  with  romantically  free,  and  with  classi- 
cally restrained,  forms  and  moods.  Creative  genius  was 
acceptedly  a  breath  from  the  gods,  blowing  whither  it  listeth, 


THE  RENAISSANCE  171 

provided  it  be  willing  —  noblesse  oblige  —  to  blow  through 
only  tubes  and  stops  of  classical  manufacture.  Typically 
romantic  would  seem  the  mood  of  Ariosto's  humoresque 
fantasia  of 

"The  ladies  and  cavaliers,  the  arms  and  loves, 

Courtesies,  and  daring  deeds  that  were,  what  time 

The  Moors  from  Africa  came  oversea." 

Yet  Ariosto  carefully  followed  by  anticipation  the  injunction 
of  Du  Bellay  "to  soak  himself  in  the  classics,  to  devour  them, 
and  having  well  digested  them,  to  convert  them  into  his  own 
flesh  and  blood."  For  relative  observance  of  classic  epic 
structure,  for  purism  of  diction  and  harmony  of  style,  for 
studied  clarity  and  moderation,  Ariosto  has  been  called  the 
founder  of  the  classic  tradition  in  Italian  poetry.  Ronsard 
and  his  "Pleiade"  strove  with  might  and  main  after  the  classic 
models;  but  it  is  their  natural  Romantic  lyrism  that  has  lasted, 
that  has  led  to  their  rehabilitation  from  the  slurs  of  the  Classi- 
cist Malherbe  by  the  attorney  of  Romanticism,  Sainte-Beuve. 
If  Du  Bellay  formulated  the  classic  canon  in  his  elaborate 
"Defence  and  Ennoblement  of  the  French  Language,"  in  a 
single  line  of  his  "Regrets"  he  epitomized  the  Romantic  con- 
fession, 

"  I  write  naively  all  that  touches  me  at  heart." 

Spenser,  accepted  by  his  own  age  as  the  English  Vergil,  was 
disdained  by  the  English  "Augustan"  age  as  a  fantastic 
"Goth,"  and  hailed  by  the  generation  of  Keats  as  "the  bright 
Lyrist"  "blasphemed"  by  the  "rocking-horse"  school  of 
Boileau.  Lope  de  Vega,  writing  plays  in  defiance  of  all  classic 
rule,  protests  that  in  deference  to  the  childlike  public,  he  sins 
against  his  own  lights. 

But  throughout  Europe  the  gradual  inclination  in  Church 
and  State,  in  Art  and  Literature,  was  towards  centralized 
authority.  By  the  mid-sixteenth  century  Italian  critics 
had  already  formulated  the  Classicist  canon  by  which  seven- 


172  THE   RENAISSANCE 

teenth-century  French  Literature  was  to  be  governed,  and 
to  govern.  Harmoniously  conforming  private  reason  with 
established  authoritj'  in  Church  and  State  and  society,  imita- 
tion of  "nature"  with  imitation  of  the  classics,  the  poetry 
of  Racine  and  the  criticism  of  Boileau  realized,  as  never  had 
been  realized  since  Augustus  ruled,  the  Roman  ideals  of  sanity, 
clarity,  temperance,  subordination.  Speaking  thus  in  the 
spirit,  if  not  in  the  letter,  a  Roman  language,  such  poetry  and 
criticism  might  be  said  to  verify  Valla's  prophecy,  "The 
Roman  Empire  is  there,  because  there  the  Roman  language 
prevails." 

But  if  this  French  classic  Literature  fulfils  the  Roman  mood 
of  the  Renaissance,  it  negates  what  in  a  rather  special  sense  I 
may  call  the  Greek  mood  of  the  Renaissance.  I  mean  the 
mood  of  individual  self-assertion,  of  restlessness,  inquisitive- 
ness,  of  the  "  all-thirstiness "  of  Pantagruel.  As  the  jealous 
self-assertion  of  the  individual  Greek  states  at  once  developed 
their  distinct  personalities  and  at  the  same  time  left  them,  like 
the  loose  twigs  of  the  traditional  faggot,  to  be  easily  broken 
by  the  concentered  strength  of  Macedonia  and  of  Rome, 
so  the  jealously  self-assertive  Italian  states  were  broken  by 
the  solid  force  of  France  and  of  Spain.  Dream  as  Italians 
might  of  a  new  Roman  Empire,  or  at  least  of  a  new  Italian 
Nation,  in  their  waking,  working  hours  they  refused  the  one 
sacrifice  needful,  the  sacrifice  of  individual  and  local  self-in- 
terest. After  all,  their  blood  was  mixed;  their  mixed  Ger- 
manic and  Roman  institutions  were  but  outer  manifestations 
of  mixed  inheritance.  When  Humanist  patriots  inveighed 
against  alien  rule  ("this  barbarian  dominion  smells  to  heaven!" 
cried  Machiavelli),  when  the  Florentines  argued  that  "the 
Latins  must  always  hold  the  Germans  in  enmity,  seeing  that 
they  are  opposed  in  act  and  deed,  in  manners  and  soul," 
all  forgot  that  these  liberty-loving  barbarians,  these  indi- 
vidualistic Germans,  asserted  empire  not  only  over  Italian 
borders,  but  as  well  within  Italian  breasts.     The  Machiavelli 


THE   RENAISSANCE  173 

who  exhorts  his  imagined  Prince,  Dante's  Veltro  redivivus,  to 
unite  Italy  though  the  heavens  fall  —  and  liberty,  morality, 
humanity,  fall  with  them  —  this  Machiavelli  as  Florentine 
Secretary  has  no  other  thought  than  for  the  selfish  aggrandize- 
ment of  Florence.  For  him  as  Italian  patriot,  Caesar  Borgia 
is  the  great  pacificator;  for  him  as  Florentine  citizen  Caesar 
Borgia  is  a  "basilisk"  and  an  enemy  of  mankind.  For 
Machiavelli's  Italy,  the  solid  "grandeur  that  was  Rome," 
grounded  on  unity  and  subordination,  was  obviously  not  again 
to  be;  but  seeking,  even  in  imagination,  this  Roman  solidarity, 
studying  Roman  wisdom,  yet  restless,  inquisitive,  "proving 
all  things,"  freely  expanding  and  sensuously  expressing  her 
multiple  personality  in  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil. 
Renaissance  Italy  did  in  some  measure  achieve  again  "the 
glory  that  was  Greece,"  and  like  Greece,  in  the  field  of  the 
spirit  conquer  her  conquerors. 

If  the  French  Racine  most  nearly  realized  the  Roman  ideal 
of  Italian  Plumanists,  it  is  no  mere  paradox  to  declare  the 
Greek  mood  of  the  Renaissance  at  its  richest  in  the  English 
Shakspere.  His  writings  hold  the  mirror  up  to  his  nature, 
and  reveal  it  supremely  "restless,  inquisitive,  'proving  all 
things,'  freely  expanding  and  sensuously  expressing  a  multiple 
personality  in  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil."  Because  he, 
as  Ben  Jonson  said,  "knew  little  Latin,  and  less  Greek," 
Shakspere  thus  reincarnates  the  Greek  spirit;  more  of  a 
scholar,  he  had  been  more  a  slave  to  the  letter  and  the  rule, 
like  the  "learned  Grecians"  of  his  time.  As  it  was,  his- Hu- 
manism derived  vastly  less  from  the  authority  of  "humane 
letters,"  ex  Uteris  humanioribus,  than  from  the  appeal  of  hu- 
man concerns,  ex  moribus  humanis.  And  such,  if  I  may  so 
say,  was  the  "Humanism"  of  the  Greeks  themselves. 

Shakspere's  genius  is  not  merely  unperplexed  between 
liberty  and  authority  in  art,  it  is  also  hardly  divided  in  interest 
between  earth  and  heaven.  Sufficient  unto  the  earth  are  the 
interests  thereof.     "Shakspere,"  Carlyle  noted  in  his  Jour- 


174  THE    RENAISSANCE 

nal,  "seems  to  have  had  no  religion  but  his  poetry."  Maybe, 
and  maybe  not;  but  in  any  case  his  thought,  his  poetry,  is 
turned  to  secular  ends.  All  manner  of  human  men  and  women 
he  draws,  and  some  monsters,  but  never  an  embryo  saint  or 
theological  doctor.  In  this  complete  Humanism,  this  whole- 
souled  absorption  in  humanity,  Shakspere  gives  the  pure 
color,  marks  the  precise  center  of  that  band  in  the  historical 
spectrum  of  European  civilization  which  we  call  the  Renais- 
sance; as  his  contemporary  Edmund  Spenser,  on  the  other 
hand,  illustrates  the  pervasive  tendency  away  from  Human- 
ism, gospel  of  humanity,  towards  a  new  "divinity,"  a  new 
asceticism.  Spenser's  own  mood  is  one  of  compromise.  In 
his  youth  he  wrote  two  "Hymnes  in  Honour  of  Love  and 
Beautie,"  perfervid  with  praise  of  "Beauties  glorious  beame" 
and  of  Love,  "Lord  of  truth  and  loialtie."  Nothing  could  be 
chaster  than  these  Platonizing  pseans,  yet  their  author  came  to 
feel  them  pernicious,  "finding,"  he  says,  "that  the  same  too 
much  pleased  those  of  like  age  and  disposition,  which  being 
too  vehemently  caried  with  that  kind  of  affection,  do  rather 
sucke  out  poyson  to  their  strong  passion,  then  hony  to  then- 
honest  delight";  wherefore,  unable  to  call  them  in,  he  re- 
solved "to  reforme  them,  making,  in  stead  of  those  two 
Hymnes  of  earthly  or  naturall  love  and  beautie,  two  others 
of  heavenly  and  celestiall."  If  the  watchword  of  the  progres- 
sive Renaissance  was  Valla's  affirmation  of  the  trustworthi- 
ness of  Nature,  here  in  Spenser's  distrust  of  Nature,  in  his 
resolve  to  "reforme  .  .  .  earthly  or  naturall"  moods  into 
"heavenly  and  celestiall"  moods,  is  in  principle  the  negation 
of  the  Renaissance.  As  for  Dante,  Vergil  and  Reason  yield  to 
Beatrice  and  Dogma;  so  for  Spenser,  Plato  gives  place  to 
Calvin.  Spenser  may  well  call  his  two  reformed  Hymnes 
"two  honorable  sisters,"  for  they  have  indeed  taken  the  veil; 
Cytherea  has  passed  her  Calvinistic  novitiate,  and  now  as 
Sister  Sapience  retires  to  her  cell,  "the  closet  of  her  chastest 
bower. "     Nor  in 


THE   RENAISSANCE  175 

"...  those,  whom  shee 
Vouchsafeth  to  her  presence  to  receave, 
.   .  .  thenceforth  doth  any  fleshly  sense, 
Or  idle  thought  of  earthly  things,  remaine"  ; 

but  through  her  they  are  led  to 

"...  looke  at  last  up  to  that  Soveraigne  Light, — 
Even  the  love  of  God ;  which  loathing  brings 
Of  this  vile  world  and  these  gay-seeming  things.'' 

The  "Faerie  Queene"  is,  under  its  garment  of  sensuous  im- 
agery, but  a  long  sermon  on  the  same  world-renouncing  text. 
Rabelais'  sun  of  nature  is  setting  on  the  eve  of  the  Puritan 
Sabbath,  which,  in  effect,  Spenser's  last  line  acclaims, 

"  0  that  great  Sabbaoth  God  graunt  me  that  Sabaoths  sight !  " 


IX 

THE  CLASSICAL  RULE 
By  John  Erskine,  Associate  Professor  of  English 

The  eighteenth  century  is  the  period  of  the  Classical  Rule. 
Between  the  end  of  the  Renaissance  and  the  beginning  of  the 
Romantic  movement  accompanying  the  French  Revolution, 
the  literatures  of  Europe  were  under  the  almost  despotic 
influence  of  the  classics.  It  may  seem  an  error  to  speak  of 
the  "end  of  the  Renaissance"  and  the  ''beginning  of  the  Ro- 
mantic movement/'  as  though  the  Renaissance  in  some  of 
its  ideals  were  not  still  vital  with  us,  and  as  though  the  Ro- 
mantic movement  had  not  been  felt  in  man's  earliest  imag- 
inings. It  may  seem  an  error  also  to  imply  that  the  Classical 
influence  was  at  its  absolute  height  in  all  the  European  lit- 
eratures at  the  same  time,  whereas  such  an  influence  is  a  wave, 
surging  out  of  Italy  into  France,  from  France  into  England 
and  Germany,  and  recoiling  in  a  spent  form  from  England 
back  into  Italy..  But  even  tentative  dates  are  convenient. 
For  English  Literature,  if  Milton  be  considered  the  last  writer 
of  the  Renaissance,  his  death  in  1674  may  be  taken  as  the 
starting-point  of  the  Classical  period;  and  the  end  of  the  period 
may  be  found  just  before  the  revolutionary  writings  of  Blake 
and  Burns.  And  this  arbitrary  century,  1675-1775,  which 
in  English  Literature  includes  the  mature  power  of  the  Classi- 
cal period  rather  than  its  origin  or  its  decay,  may  serve  as  well 
for  the  approximate  boundaries  of  the  period  in  the  continental 
literatures. 

A  far  greater  need  for  definition  is  in  this  word  "Classical." 
N  177 


178  THE  CLASSICAL   RULE 

With  its  companion  term,  Romantic,  it  bids  fair  to  supply 
criticism  with  one  of  its  perpetual  quarrels.  Who  ever  did 
define  Romantic  so  as  to  satisfy  all  his  hearers  ?  It  is  with 
deep  pleasure,  therefore,  that  I  consign  that  horn  of  the  di- 
lemma to  the  next  lecturer.  Classical  is  an  easier  term  to  deal 
with.  It  is  vague  largely  because,  like  other  literary  terms, 
it  serves  many  meanings,  and  has  a  trick  of  suggesting  several 
of  them  at  once.  It  originally  meant  simply,  the  best  of  a 
kind  or  class.  Those  Roman  citizens  were  dassici  who  were 
at  the  head  of  their  classus.  When  the  word,  still  in  Roman 
times,  was  first  applied  to  writers  and  their  works,  "Classical" 
meant  the  best  of  the  particular  kind.  In  the  same  sense 
we  still  speak  of  a  new  book  as  a  classic;  and  it  should  be 
noted,  in  this  use  is  implied  no  opposition  to  "Romantic." 
In  our  common  American  speech  to-day  perhaps  this  oldest 
meaning  of  the  word  is  the  one  we  usually  intend;  with  us  a 
classic  is  a  masterpiece,  a  finished  work,  secure  of  its  fame. 

But  for  the  European  mind  the  classics  have  been  pre- 
eminently the  literatures  of  Greece  and  Rome,  and  the  term 
applied  to  individuals  has  meant  those  Greek  or  Latin  authors 
who  excel  and  set  the  standard  in  their  kind  of  writing.  The 
very  fact  that  they  were  considered  models  for  later  writers 
would  have  implied  sooner  or  later  a  body  of  formulas  or  rules 
deduced  from  their  practice.  But  the  enormous  vitality  of 
the  Aristotelian  tradition  in  criticism  happened  to  supply 
such  formulas  as  a  chief  part  of  the  classical  heritage,  so  that 
the  Renaissance  scholar  conceived  of  a  classic  as  a  master- 
piece of  ancient  Literature,  produced  in  conformity  with  recog- 
nized laws.  Herein  the  opposition  is  plain  to  the  lawlessness 
of  Romantic  art. 

In  the  content  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  masterpieces  the 
medieval  world,  emerging  into  the  Renaissance,  found  to  its  joy 
clarity  of  spirit  and  sanity  of  mind.  The  world  as  the  an- 
cients saw  it  was  comparatively  simple  and  whole,  and  their 
technically  perfect  and  transparent  expression  was  in  accord 


THE  CLASSICAL  RULE  179 

with  an  inward  balance  and  order.  That  the  ancient  writers 
were  not  always  sane;  that  they  now  seem  to  us  at  times 
romantic  in  technic  and  in  mood,  more  modem  in  certain 
aspects  than  some  of  our  contemporaries,  need  not  disturb 
us  here.  At  least  to  the  early  Renaissance  they  furnished 
ideals  of  sanity,  clearness,  and  order,  which  still  are  strongly 
implied  in  the  word  "Classical." 

Out  of  this  meaning  of  the  word  comes  a  final  meaning, 
which  we  are  somewhat  prone  to  use  as  a  reproach.  That 
Literature  which  is  perfect  in  order,  sanity,  and  restraint  is 
likely  to  seem  to  highly  emotional  natures  mechanical  and  cold. 
The  Romantic  movement  in  England,  at  least,  managed  to 
throw  back  some  such  opprobrium  upon  the  writers  of  Queen 
Anne's  time,  and  it  may  be  doubted  if  many  young  students 
of  English  Literature  think  of  the  eighteenth  century  much 
more  happily  than  as  a  slough  of  despond  through  which  the 
national  genius  wallowed  and  waded,  and  emerged  at  the 
wicket  gate  of  the  "Lyrical  Ballads."  And  too  proverbial, 
unfortunately,  is  the  difficulty  an  Anglo-Saxon  of  our  time  has 
in  discovering  any  charm  in  the  Classical  writing  of  France. 

A  classic,  then,  as  we  must  use  the  word,  is  a  Greek  or 
Latin  author  whose  work  is  standard  in  its  kind,  and  there- 
fore gives  the  law  to  later  wTiters  in  that  kind.  His  view  of 
life  is  large  and  sane,  his  emotion  is  held  in  balance  by  reason, 
and  his  technic  is  perfect.  And  perhaps  we  should  remember 
too  that  Classical  Literature,  so  defined,  suggests  composition 
under  happy  auspices,  in  a  golden  age,  under  a  Maecenas  or 
Louis  XIV  or  Queen  Anne,  in  a  period  when  Literature  is 
least  reformatory  or  evangelical,  and  most  contemplative, 
most  in  accord  with  its  age.  Such  a  period  craves  national  lei- 
sure and  peace  and  much  learning.  It  comes  only  after  years 
of  more  rapturous  but  less  coherent  endeavor,  for  it  needs  a 
large  background  of  material  to  work  upon.  It  is  a  time  when 
the  race  sets  its  house  in  order  and  realizes  its  imaginative 
wealth.     It  is  therefore  thoroughly  conscious  and  calculating, 


180  THE   CLASSICAL   RULE 

not  given  to  ecstasies,  and  to  that  extent  it  is  a  period  which 
seems  to  suppress  the  race's  imagination.  But  it  is  always  a 
cUmax,  and  marks  a  desirable  accomplishment  of  culture. 
We  may  borrow  Sainte-Beuve's  image  and  say  of  a  literature, 
as  he  said  of  the  individual,  that  there  comes  a  season,  after 
its  journeys  and  experiences  are  accomplished,  when  its  live- 
liest joy  is  to  ponder  and  fathom  what  it  has  learnt,  and  feel 
again  its  old  emotions,  as  one  might  love  to  visit  and  revisit 
old  friends.     That  is  the  spirit  of  a  Classical  period. 

Although  1675  may  be  taken  for  the  first  arbitrary  date, 
the  influence  of  the  classics  upon  European  Literature  begins, 
of  course,  in  the  earliest  movement  of  the  Renaissance,  when 
the  new-found  treasures  of  Greece  started  the  imagination  of 
Italy,  and  then  of  the  whole  cultured  world.  When  we  read 
of  the  devotion  and  the  sacrifice  with  which  the  Italian  col- 
lectors brought  together  the  priceless  libraries  which  became 
the  well-heads  of  inspiration  for  modern  Literature,  we  may 
well  suspect  that  those  old  manuscripts,  so  perishable,  so  ex- 
tremely difficult  to  find,  had  for  the  popes  and  princes  and 
their  emissaries  a  romantic  appeal,  the  lure  that  takes  hold  of 
collectors.  But  from  the  beginning  it  was  the  substance  of 
the  classics  that  was  praised.  The  sanity  of  the  world  they 
descril^ed,  the  wisdom  and  the  justice  of  their  speculations 
upon  life,  fitted  them  to  be  at  once  the  basis  not  only  for  lit- 
erary study,  but  for  all  education.  In  the  Renaissance  to  read 
and  write  Latin  and  Greek  was  the  first  discipline  of  the 
mind. 

The  honor  in  which  the  old  languages  were  held,  and  the 
masterpieces  they  contained,  produced  at  once  a  conflict  not 
to  be  decided  until  the  Romantic  revival,  perhaps  not  de- 
cided then.  The  Middle  Ages  were  of  course  rich  in  literary 
expression,  and  the  coming  of  Classical  ideals  found  each 
nation  with  a  mass  of  poetry  on  its  hands,  and  in  most  cases 
an  incipient  drama,  to  which  Greek  and  Roman  standards  of 


THE  CLASSICAL   RULE  181 

taste  could  not  apply.  Since  this  national,  idiomatic  Litera- 
ture did  not  conform  to  the  Classical  law,  the  scholars  were 
for  discarding  it.  Give  up,  says  Du  Bellay,  all  such  foolish- 
ness as  rondeaux,  ballades,  virelais,  and  chants  royaux,  which 
serve  only  to  prove  our  ignorance ;  give  your  attention  to  the 
epigrams  of  Martial,  and  the  elegies  of  Ovid,  and  imitate  the 
odes  of  Horace.  And  as  for  comedies  and  tragedies,  you 
would  know  where  to  look  for  their  models,  if  only  kings  and 
commonwealths  would  restore  them  to  their  ancient  dignity, 
now  usurped  by  farces  and  moralities.  A  few  years  later 
Sidney  had  his  famous  condemnation  to  make  of  that  English 
drama  which  is  the  chief  glory  of  the  Elizabethan  age,  finding 
fault  with  it  because  it  was  not  in  accord  with  the  models  of 
Seneca  and  Plautus.  Here  the  conflict  between  the  national 
folk-literature  and  the  scholarly,  Classical  ideal  is  sharply 
defined.  It  makes  little  difference  that  Sidney  happens  to  be 
in  sympathy  with  some  highly  unclassical  section  of  English 
poetry,  as  where,  confessing  his  own  barbarousness,  he  says 
he  never  heard  the  old  song  of  ''Percy  and  Douglas"  but  he 
found  his  heart  moved  more  than  with  a  trumpet.  The  point 
is  that  he  allows  himself  this  praise  of  the  Romantic  ballad 
only  because  there  is  no  Classical  precept  to  forbid  him;  and 
he  bolsters  up  his  self-accusing  taste  by  reminding  us  that  the 
incomparable  Lacedemonians  carried  ever  that  kind  of  music 
with  them  into  the  field.  So  Addison  explained  the  beauty  of 
the  same  ballad,  by  showing  that  it  resembled  the  classics. 
"If  this  song  had  been  written  in  the  Gothic  Manner,  which 
is  the  Delight  of  all  our  little  Wits,  whether  Writers  or  Readers, 
it  would  not  have  hit  the  Taste  of  so  many  Ages,  or  have 
pleased  the  Readers  of  all  Ranks  and  Conditions.  I  shall 
only  beg  Pardon  for  such  a  profusion  of  Latin  Quotations; 
which  I  should  not  have  made  use  of,  but  that  I  feared  my  own 
Judgment  would  have  looked  too  singular  on  such  a  Subject, 
had  I  not  supported  it  by  the  Practice  and  Authority  of 
Virgil."     And  earlier  in  the  same  paper  he  wrote,   "The 


182  THE  CLASSICAL  RULE 

Thought  is  altogether  the  same  with  what  we  meet  in  several 
Passages  of  the  '^Eneid  ' ;  not  that  I  would  infer  from  thence, 
that  the  Poet  (whoever  he  was)  proposed  to  himself  any 
Imitation  of  those  Passages,  but  that  he  was  directed  to  them 
in  general,  by  the  same  kind  of  Poetical  Genius,  and  by  the 
same  Copyings  after  Nature."  In  attempting  to  justify 
their  love  of  a  great  poem  not  derived  from  Greek  or  Latin, 
Sidney  and  Addison  were  larger  minded  than  the  stricter 
Classicists;  they  were  seeking  instinctively  that  modern  defini- 
tion of  a  classic  which  Sainte-Beuve  proclaimed,  a  definition 
generous  enough  to  include  all  masterpieces  of  every  school 
and  time. 

But  for  a  century  or  two  the  conflict  was  to  be  waged 
between  the  national  genius  of  each  country  and  the  common 
Classical  ideal.  We  are  accustomed  to  think  that  the  Ro- 
mantic, native  Literature  was  destined  to  supremacy  from 
the  first,  simply  because  it  has  been  in  the  ascendant  for  the 
last  hundred  years.  But  it  was  equally  natural  for  the 
eighteenth  century  to  believe  in  the  Classical  ideal,  and  for 
the  same  reason.  The  Classical  qualities  appealed  to  the 
world  then,  and  seemed  as  firmly  planted  as  Romance  seems 
now.  If  Sidney  was  mistaken  in  condemning  the  Elizabethan 
drama  for  its  unreasonable  extravagances,  at  least  it  was  more 
than  two  hundred  years  before  scholars  thought  he  was  wrong; 
and  the  drama  to-day  is  nearer  to  his  ideal  than  to  Shak- 
spere's. 

Besides  this  conflict  between  the  national  folk-literatures 
and  the  superimposed  Classical  ideal,  the  acceptance  of  Latin 
and  Greek  models  induced  another  conflict.  To  a  large 
degree  the  Renaissance  mind,  inheriting  the  medieval  delight 
in  formulas,  was  disposed  to  imitate  the  Classics  by  imitating 
their  outward  form.  Only  the  more  fortunate  grasped  the 
truth  that  the  inner  spirit  of  Classicism  could  be  poured  into 
the  native  molds  of  French  or  English  Literature.  Du 
Bellay,  as  we  have  seen,  would  discard  the  Provengal  verse 


THE  CLASSICAL  RULE  183 

forms  for  the  Classical  odes,  and  Gabriel  Harvey  would  have 
the  young  Spenser  and  Philip  Sidney  write  their  rhymeless 
verses  in  a  prosody  painfully  close  to  Latin  rules;  and  later 
Campion  was  to  make  his  admirable  plea  for  the  Classical, 
quantitative  verse,  regardless  of  his  own  fame  in  rhyme. 
Out  of  this  absolute  temper,  prone  to  dogmatic  formula, 
evolved  the  rigid  tradition  of  the  eighteenth  century  in  France 
and  England.  In  France  the  Pleiade,  that  group  of  poets 
around  Ronsard,  had  sought  to  improve  their  Literature  and 
their  language  by  Classical  imitation;  although  they  did  less 
violence  than  Harvey  or  Campion  to  the  genius  of  their  native 
tongue,  they  bound  it  by  rules  as  strict,  formulating  the  uses 
of  the  alexandrine,  of  rhyme  and  assonance,  of  the  hiatus,  of 
strophe-form.  If  they  did  not  practise  the  artificial  hexam- 
eters and  quantitative  stanzas  that  greet  us  to  our  astonish- 
ment in  Sidney's  ''Arcadia,"  they  at  least  gave  to  their  Lit- 
erature the  Classical  tradition  of  formula  and  law,  and  by  their 
own  great  lyric  gifts  made  the  formulas  seem  vital.  But  in 
protest  to  this  tradition  other  critics  emphasized  the  sub- 
stance rather  than  the  form  of  Classicism,  and  so  uncon- 
sciously preserved  in  their  respective  countries  that  native 
strain  which  was  to  have  its  day  in  Romanticism.  After  a 
writer  has  mastered  all  the  rules  of  the  Pleiade,  says  Regnier, 
he  is  still  not  necessarily  a  poet. 

"  All  he  knows 
Is  to  write  prose  in  rime,  and  rime  his  prose." 

And  the  vigorous  Elizabethan  speech  stirred  itself  to  do 
justice  to  Harvey's  "Ram's  home  rules  of  direction,"  that 
"rable  of  scholastical  precepts  which  be  tedious." 

These,  then,  are  the  two  literary  problems  which  Classi- 
cism held  out  to  the  Renaissance  world,  and  which  continued 
to  divide  the  practice  of  English  Literature  till  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  which  has  divided  the  practice  of  French  Literature 
still  later.     Should  or  should  not  the  Classical  standards  super- 


184  THE  CLASSICAL   RULE 

sede  the  indigenous  forms  of  art  ?     And  should  the  imitation 
of  the  Classics  be  through  external  rules  or  through  the  spirit  ? 

The  rule  of  the  Classicists  was  strongest  in  France.  A 
nation  that  has  an  effective  Academy,  for  the  regulation  of  its 
language  and  literature ;  a  nation  that  loves  reason  and  order 
and  excels  in  the  formal  things  of  art,  would  naturally  wel- 
come a  literary  tradition  based  upon  authority.  The  French 
genius,  as  we  think  of  it  now,  is  nearest  to  the  intellectual 
clarity  of  the  Greek,  and  the  Classical  tradition,  as  it  touched 
the  Literature  of  each  country,  called  out  in  response  from  that 
Literature  those  qualities  most  in  accord  with  it.  Because 
the  French  genius  had  a  tendency  toward  the  formal  things 
of  art,  —  technic  and  structure,  whatever  can  be  developed  by 
precept  and  practice,  —  French  Classicism  emphasized  those 
elements,  somewhat  to  the  exclusion  of  other  traits.  It  is  im- 
portant to  remind  ourselves  that  had  there  been  no  Classical 
tradition  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  France 
would  still  have  set  store  by  some  of  the  characteristics  we 
find  in  Racine  or  Voltaire.  But  in  the  ancient  tradition  the 
French  spirit  found  itself  ennobled  and  reenforced,  so  that 
France  became  the  natural  stronghold  of  Classicism. 

What  aspects  of  the  Classical  tradition  France  was  destined 
to  make  prominent,  were  sufficiently  indicated  by  the  found- 
ing of  the  Academy  in  1635.  Its  forty  members  were  resolved 
to  strive  for  the  purity  of  the  French  tongue,  and  to  make  it 
fit  for  the  highest  eloquence,  a  purpose  that  was  induced  by 
patriotic  motives.  But  in  the  further  plan  of  the  Academy 
to  compose  an  authoritative  Dictionary,  Rhetoric,  and  system 
of  poetics,  we  see  at  once  the  implication  so  easy  for  the  Latin 
mind  and  so  difficult  for  the  Anglo-Saxon,  that  imaginative 
Literature  can  be  fostered  to  any  great  extent  by  a  system  of 
rules.  The  Academy  was  also  to  pass  judgment  upon  the 
writings  of  its  members,  for  the  further  promulgation  of  its 
literary  principles.     Without  any  direct  dependence  upon  the 


THE   CLASSICAL   RULE  185 

ancients,  then,  it  was  evident  that  through  this  institution 
France  would  put  its  Literature  in  order  and  fashion  recipes 
for  the  continued  production  of  the  kind  of  art  it  hked. 

Two  years  after  the  founding  of  the  Academy,  Descartes 
pubHshed  his  ''Discours  de  la  Methode,"  written  not  m  Latin 
but  in  French,  through  the  same  impulse  of  patriotism  as 
interested  the  Academy  in  the  native  tongue.  How  great  the 
influence  of  Descartes  is  upon  Boileau,  Corneille,  Racine,  and 
the  other  less  typical  writers  of  the  period  can  hardly  be  de- 
termined here;  but  he  must  be  mentioned  as  illustrating,  along 
with  the  purely  literary  men,  the  worship  of  reason  in  French 
thought  of  that  time,  and  his  attempt  to  explain  the  universe 
according  to  mechanical  laws  is  of  a  kind  with  the  literary 
attempt  to  reduce  the  creations  of  the  imagination  to  laws  as 
absolute. 

Criticism  has  pointed  out  one  important  influence  of  Des- 
cartes upon  Corneille,  or  at  least  a  parallel  between  them. 
In  Descartes'  system  of  ethics  the  chief  emphasis  is  upon  the 
will.  Passion,  in  his  philosophy,  should  be  directed  to  good 
actions  by  the  will,  and  the  will  should  be  restrained  and  taught 
by  reason.  In  Corneille's  tragedies,  such  as  "Horace"  and 
"Polyeucte,"  the  dramatic  struggle  is  between  passion  and 
the  will,  guided  by  reason.  For  the  exploitation  of  such  a 
subject  the  form  of  the  Classical  tragedy  would  have  been  a 
convenient  model,  even  if  critical  opinion  had  not  forced 
Corneille  to  adopt  it;  whatever  else  this  kind  of  theme  de- 
manded, it  demanded  a  presentation  that  should  be  intense, 
logical,  and  complete;  every  step  in  the  struggle  between  the 
will  and  passion  should  be  represented,  not  as  an  episode, 
but  as  a  term  in  a  scientific  demonstration.  The  so-called 
Classical  unities  of  time,  place,  and  action  were  acceptable 
to  Corneille  because  they  helped  to  develop  his  philosophical 
themes  with  the  precision  he  desired. 

It  was  not  Corneille,  however,  but  Racine  who  gave  French 
tragedy  once  for  all  its  Classical  form.     In  his  case  it  is  easy 


186  THE  CLASSICAL   RULE 

to  trace  the  influence  of  the  ancient  Uteratures.  He  was  an 
accomplished  Greek  scholar,  saturated  with  the  spirit  of  that 
lofty  drama  which  he  tried  to  realize  once  more  on  his  native 
stage,  and  to  some  extent  he  was  a  philosopher;  the  broad 
idealizations  which  fill  out  so  austere  a  form  as  Classical 
tragedy  were  native  in  his  cast  of  thought.  But  he  teaches 
us  how  impossible  it  is  for  a  man  or  a  nation  to  think  in 
t^rms  of  the  past;  much  as  he  thought  himself  Greek,  he 
was  essentially  French.  His  very  limitations  make  appre- 
ciation of  him  a  test  of  one's  appreciation  of  the  French  genius. 
In  the  reasonableness  of  his  dramatic  theory  far  more  than 
Comeille  he  is  the  child  of  his  age.  Where  Comeille  held 
that  the  extraordinary  subject,  improbable  but  heroic,  was  the 
true  material  for  tragedy,  Racine  insisted  that  its  true  material 
was  ordinary,  commonplace  life.  Where  Comeille's  drama 
was  complex  or  subtle,  Racine's  was  simple  to  the  point  of 
bareness.  Commonplace  character  in  the  most  usual  crises  of 
life  was  his  subject,  and  most  of  his  plots  were  love  stories, 
because  love,  he  considered,  is  the  commonest  test  of  character. 
In  other  traits  besides  his  reasonableness  Racine  may  well 
be  considered  the  most  typical  of  the  Classical  writers  in 
France.  More  absolutely  than  Comeille,  he  adopted  with- 
out protest  those  rigid  precepts  for  the  drama  which  the 
criticism  of  his  time  thought  it  derived  from  the  ancients, 
the  unities,  for  example;  and  since  he  was  a  poet  of  great 
genius,  he  obeyed  with  consummate  ease  those  laws  of  ver- 
sification with  which  the  Pleiade  had  bound  the  alexan- 
drine. In  his  obedience  to  rigid  laws,  and  in  the  ease  with 
which  he  moves  within  narrow  limits,  he  is  the  supreme  monu- 
ment of  French  taste.  But  he  illustrates  also  only  too 
well  the  sacrifices  by  which  Classicism  arrived  at  this  sort 
of  perfection.  He  could  treat  only  such  subjects  as  suited 
the  form  he  practised,  and  such  subjects  were  few.  He  looked 
at  life  not  with  curiosity  to  see  what  it  was,  but  to  find  such 
characters  and  situations  as  could  be  included  in  his  formula. 


THE   CLASSICAL   RULE  187 

Therefore  whatever  was  ignoble  or  crude  or  subtle  or  modem 
was  rejected,  if  he  ever  perceived  it,  for  what  was  in  his  sense 
tragic.  That  Racine  might,  under  other  influences,  have 
been  a  great  comedy-writer,  is  proved  by  his  delightful 
"Les  Plaideurs";  but  even  in  that  play  he  follows  the  an- 
cients, borrowing  from  Aristophanes. 

It  is  usual  to  say  that  Racine's  characters  are  types  rather 
than  characters.  This  criticism  of  one  who  took  the  Greek 
dramatists  for  his  masters  is  not  surprising;  for  in  its  ele- 
mental simplicity  the  ancient  tragedy,  like  the  ancient  sculp- 
ture, presented  life  in  types  rather  than  in  individuals.  In- 
deed, the  theater  of  Racine's  time  had  this  advantage,  that 
the  acted  part,  no  matter  how  faintly  individual  the  char- 
acter seems  on  the  page,  must  have  fixed  itself  in  the  per- 
sonality of  the  actor;  whereas  in  the  Greek  theater  the  scale 
of  the  performance  must  have  prevented  much  individual 
interpretation.  But  there  is  this  profound  difference  between 
the  Greek  type  and  the  persons  in  Racine's  plays.  The 
Greek  character  is  made  a  type  by  a  process  of  idealization; 
Prometheus  or  Antigone  is  the  quintessence  of  the  Greek  ideal 
of  unselfish  patience  or  filial  devotion.  Because  they  are 
based  in  life,  and  reach  their  concentrated  form  through  no 
influence  of  esthetic  rules,  but  through  the  instinctive  work- 
ings of  the  human  imagination,  they  stand  for  more  than 
they  incarnate,  they  seem  native  to  other  ages  and  other 
lands  than  ancient  Greece.  But  the  Classicist  formula  for- 
bade Racine  to  deal  with  life  broadly;  his  characters  are  not 
idealizations  so  much  as  they  are  definitions.  They  suggest 
nothing  more  than  they  say;  they  are  Classically  "finished," 
in  the  sense  that  they  rouse  no  emotion  they  do  not  satisfy; 
and  they  have  meant  very  little,  as  expressions  of  life,  to 
other  nations  than  the  French.  The  Greek  tjq^e  is  life  made 
clear  by  wonder  and  love;  the  Racine  type  is  life  set  in  order 
by  rule. 

If  the  verdict  seems  to  be  against  Racine,  let  us  remember 


188  THE  CLASSICAL   RULE 

that  the  portion  of  human  experience  which  is  thoroughly 
manageable  in  prescribed  art-forms  is  very  small  indeed. 
Only  the  experience  that  has  been  lived  over  till  it  is  com- 
monplace can  be  counted  on,  with  any  surety,  to  let  itself 
be  demonstrated,  and  come  out  even.  In  this  central  core 
of  much-lived  wisdom  types  are  easy  to  find,  but  they  are 
not  likely  to  be  very  fresh  or  very  suggestive.  If  character 
is  suggestive,  it  is  so  by  virtue  of  the  mystery  of  life  which 
does  not  come  out  even.  Therefore  we  must  not  blame  Ra- 
cine if  his  heroes  and  heroines  seem  to  many  minds  some- 
what lacking  in  significance.  For  those  who  find  truth  most 
readily,  as  the  French  genius  does,  in  the  formal  grasp  of 
things,  who  would  rather  see  life  clearly  than  see  it  whole, 
Racine's  art  remains  justly  the  most  consummate  expression 
of  Classicism. 

With  Racine  one  naturally  associates  his  friend  Boileau, 
satirist  and  critic  after  the  example  of  Horace.  Satire  and 
burlesque  flourish  in  a  Classical  age,  because  they  appeal  to 
the  intellect,  to  the  wit,  in  the  limited  sense,  and  also  because 
an  age  which  reduces  itself  to  formulas,  which  conventional- 
izes itself,  is  easily  satirized.  In  this  century  belongs  the 
precieux  movement,  which  sought  to  govern  by  legislation 
the  emotion  and  the  conduct  of  lovers,  and  which  reduced 
the  course  of  true  love  to  geographical  accuracy  in  the  carte 
du  tendre.  That  this  particular  movement  was  susceptible 
of  satire  Moliere  showed  us  in  his  immortal  "Precieuses  Ri- 
dicules," but  life  in  other  aspects  was  sufficiently  convention- 
alized to  deserve  the  same  treatment.  It  is  natural  per- 
haps to  think  of  the  period  of  Classicism  as  expressing  itself 
in  stately,  formal  way.  It  is  worth  while  to  remind  our- 
selves that  in  French  Literature  as  well  as  in  English  and 
Italian  the  Classic  attitude  of  mind  in  its  most  intellectual 
manifestations  led  naturally  into  satire  and  burlesque, 
whether  the  writers  were  Scarron  or  Boileau  or  Dryden  or 
Pope. 


THE  CLASSICAL   RULE  189 

But  the  name  of  Boileau  is  associated  not  with  satire,  al- 
though he  made  his  reputation  first  in  that  kind  of  writing, 
but  with  formal  criticism.  His  famous  imitation  of  Hor- 
ace's "Ars  Poetica"  is  the  creed  of  the  age,  stated  with  the 
clarity  and  definiteness  of  its  best  manner,  and  with  its 
characteristic  limitations  also.  It  is  the  recipe  that  a  sci- 
entist might  formulate  for  Literature,  using  Jno  other  guide 
than  common  sense  and  good  taste.  Indeed,  the  treatise 
is  an  exposition  of  good  sense  rather  than  of  imagination:  — 

"  Whate'er  you  write  of  pleasant  or  sublime, 
Always  let  sense  accompany  your  rime. 
Falsely  they  seem  each  other  to  oppose,  — 
Rime  must  be  made  with  reason's  laws  to  close ; 
And  when  to  conriuer  her  you  bend  your  force, 
The  mind  will  triumph  in  the  noble  course ; 
To  reason's  yoke  she  quickly  will  incline, 
Which  far  from  hurting,  renders  her  divine ; 
But  if  neglected,  will  as  easily  stray. 
And  master  reason,  which  she  should  obey. 
Love  reason  then,  and  let  whate'er  you  write 
Borrow  from  her  its  beauty,  force,  and  light." 

After  stating  this  principle,  Boileau  illustrates  it  by  a  de- 
scription of  the  various  kinds  of  writing,  and  the  decorum 
required  in  the  style  of  each.  There  is  little  in  the  principle 
of  common  sense  that  a  Romanticist  might  object  to;  Words- 
worth himself  might  use  the  general  statement  in  support  of 
his  theory  of  natural  diction.  But  Boileau,  like  other  Clas- 
sicists, does  not  necessarily  mean  "natural"  when  he  says 
"reasonable";  reason,  to  his  way  of  thinking,  is  a  matter  of 
convention,  so  much  so  that  he  represents  to  the  less  formal 
Teutonic  mind  the  depth  to  which  unimaginative  prose  in 
verse  may  fall.  But  to  the  French  lover  of  restrained  form 
and  decorum  in  art,  he  is  for  criticism  what  Racine  is  for 
tragedy,  the  absolute  model. 


190  THE  CLASSICAL  RULE 

There  is  hardly  space  in  this  lecture  to  more  than  name  the 
other  appearances  of  the  Classical  tradition  in  seventeenth- 
century  France,  the  numerous  would-be  Vergilian  epics, 
such  as  the  "  Moise  Sauve  "  of  Saint-Amand  and  the  "  Alaric  " 
of  Georges  de  Scudery,  a  school  of  artificial  writing  suffi- 
ciently known  to  fame  through  the  ridicule  of  Boileau,  and 
indirectly  through  Scarron's  burlesque  of  Vergil.  Nor  is 
there  time  to  speak  of  the  rich  vein  of  worldly  wisdom  which 
always  rims  through  Classical  periods,  and  which  gave  France 
La  Rochefoucauld's  "Maximes,"and  which  Gallicized  ^Esop  in 
La  Fontaine.  Nor  can  we  discuss  the  quarrel  among  poets 
and  critics  as  to  whether  the  ancient  writers,  the  original 
Classics,  were  or  were  not  better  than  their  imitators,  a  sur- 
prisingly widespread  discussion  exemplified  in  Charles  Per- 
rault's  "Parallele  des  Anciens  et  des  Modernes."  But  some 
mention  must  be  made  of  the  man  who  in  the  eighteenth 
century  became  one  of  the  dictators,  not  only  of  French 
Literature,  but  of  European  thought,  and  who  sums  up  in  his 
character  and  achievements  practically  all  that  has  been 
said  of  Classicism  in  France. 

In  Voltaire  and  his  work  the  chief  traits  of  Classicism 
found  expression,  the  technical  skill,  the  obedience  to  lit- 
erary law  and  form,  the  predominance  of  intellectual  over 
emotional  interests,  and  the  wealth  of  worldly  wisdom.  If 
his  character  seems  hard  and  unlovely,  his  wit  cruel  as  well 
as  keen,  his  reputation  as  a  Classicist  has  not  suffered;  for 
the  English  reader,  at  least,  is  usually  prepared  to  accept 
intellectual  hardness  as  a  natural  accompaniment  of  Classi- 
cism. And  if  his  sojourn  with  Frederick  the  Great  serves 
to  make  both  himself  and  the  Prussian  ruler  in  some  lights 
ridiculous,  it  should  be  remembered  that  through  him,  more 
than  through  any  other  writer,  Classical  France  spoke  to 
Europe. 

The  importance  of  so  many-sided  a  man  cannot  be  re- 
corded adequately  here.     But  we  should  note  that  he  repre- 


THE  CLASSICAL  RULE  191 

sents,  what  is  usually  forgotten  in  literary  histories,  the 
liberating  power  of  Classicism.  He  was  trained  in  the 
strict  school;  he  could  write  facile  verse  according  to  the 
approved  rules;  in  "Zaire"  and  "Merope"  he  showed  him- 
self a  master  tragedian  in  the  difficult  tradition  of  Racine; 
intellectually,  he  was  without  a  glimpse  of  the  illusion  of 
Romanticism.  But  history  remembers  him  as  a  champion 
of  liberty,  a  friend  of  the  oppressed,  a  spokesman  for  the  new 
causes  that  were  to  bring  on  the  Revolution.  It  is  customary 
to  speak  of  Romanticism  as  fostered  largely  by  revolu- 
tionary ideas;  and  many  chronicles  of  Literature  seem  to 
imply  that  the  human  spirit,  perceiving  itself  about  to  be 
smothered  in  Rationalism,  by  a  violent  effort  broke  loose 
from  Classicism  to  breathe  the  free  Romantic  air.  It  is 
easier  in  English  Literature  than  in  French  to  show  that  this 
view  is  incorrect.  But  even  in  French  Literature  Voltaire 
illustrates  the  valuable  accomplishment  of  Classicism.  Out 
of  the  infinite  rules  of  artifice  comes  a  style  disciplined  into 
a  natural  simplicity;  out  of  the  constant  and  rigid  exercise 
of  the  intellect  comes  that  curiosity  and  skepticism  that 
means  freedom;  and  out  of  the  worship  of  common  sense 
comes  a  trust  in  the  human  race  that  means  democracy.  It 
is  well  enough,  if  we  choose,  to  despise  the  stiff  formulas 
through  which  Classicism  hoped  to  manufacture  true  Clas- 
sics. But  the  training  was  wholesome;  so  much  so  that 
without  it  Romanticism,  it  may  be,  would  have  been  but 
an  inarticulate  sentiment.  The  mind  that  had  learned  to 
think  and  speak  with  absolute  clearness  had  fully  as  much  to 
do  with  the  Revolution  as  the  soul  that  had  learned  to  feel 
vaguely. 

It  is  by  the  heroic  couplet  that  the  casual  reader  recog- 
nizes Classicism  in  England,  and  if  versification  be  the  test, 
then  Dryden  was  right  in  thinking  that  the  age  began  with 
Edmund  Waller.     But  the  real  beginning  came  from  France 


192  THE  CLASSICAL   RULE 

■unth  the  Restoration,  when  the  French  models  of  good  taste 
and  wit  encouraged  the  reaction  England  for  some  time  had 
felt  against  the  extravagances  of  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean 
Literature.  If  Wordsworth  protested  later  against  the 
unnaturalness  of  Pope's  diction,  that  diction  itself  had  once 
evolved  from  a  protest  against  other  diction  quite  as  stilted. 
The  Elizabethan  vocabulary,  characteristically  voluble  rather 
than  precise,  had  been  warped  out  of  all  common  sense  by 
the  fantastic  writers,  from  Donne  to  Cowley,  those  little 
poets  whose  aim  in  diction  was  to  hit  upon  something  that 
had  never  been  said  before.  To  be  absolutely  original  in 
your  language  just  after  a  period  as  rich  as  the  Elizabethan, 
meant  that  you  must  be  odd  beyond  all  imagining.  Even 
Robert  Herrick,  the  almost  faultless  craftsman,  was  touched 
by  the  disease,  and  in  his  two-line  or  four-line  experiments 
frequently  uses  language  which  the  world  had  not  heard 
before,  nor  has  cared  to  hear  since.  Therefore  when  Dryden 
and  his  school  restored  the  epithet  of  common  sense  to  poetic 
diction,  speaking  of  the  organ  as  the  "vocal  organ,"  or  of  the 
command  of  Heaven  as  the  "dread  command,"  they  were 
delighting  their  readers  with  a  novel  truth  to  nature,  trite  as 
their  simple  epithets  later  became. 

In  other  things  than  diction  Dryden  is  the  important 
figure  at  least  for  the  beginnmg  of  the  Classical  period.  In 
the  seventeenth  century  both  verse  and  prose  had  developed 
into  various  schools,  all  of  them  interesting  but  none  of 
them  great.  Milton  may  be  disregarded,  as  his  place  for 
many  reasons  is  with  the  great  Elizabethans.  But  the  lesser 
men  —  cavaliers,  fantastics,  puritans,  diarists,  satirists  — 
carried  the  Literature  into  divergent  and  often  decadent 
paths,  where  it  bade  fair  to  waste  itself  utterly.  In  Dry- 
den's  large  nature  most  of  those  strands  were  gathered  up. 
He  gave  English  Literature  once  more  unity  and  force;  and 
the  secret  of  his  power  was  in  that  genius  for  law  and  order 
which  results  in  Classicism. 


THE  CLASSICAL  RULE  193 

Dryden's  indebtedness  to  French  criticism  was  great.  In 
Corneille  and  Racine  he  recognized  a  logical  faculty  not  to 
be  found  in  Shakspere;  in  the  decorum  of  French  narra- 
tive he  thought  he  saw  an  immense  improvement  over 
Chaucer.  We  are  sometimes  prone  to  credit  Dryden  with 
an  unclassical  genius,  if  we  happen  to  dislike  Classicism,  and 
if  we  do  like  his  reworkings  of  Shakspere  and  Chaucer.  It 
would  be  fairer  to  the  age,  of  which  in  England  he  is  the 
greatest  and  earliest  figure,  to  admit  that  his  genius  was 
largely  intellectual,  and  that  its  power  came  largely  through 
discipline.  The  man  who  wanted  to  tag  Milton's  verse  had 
nothing  of  the  Elizabethan  about  him.  That  he  should  be 
first  of  all  a  satirist  is,  as  we  have  seen,  a  natural  effect  of  the 
period.  That  he  was  a  satirist  of  generous  proportions  was 
probably  due  to  the  importance  of  the  things  he  satirized. 
When  he  stooped  to  make  fun  of  Shadwell,  he  displayed  no 
more  of  the  Elizabethan  largeness  often  attributed  to  him 
than  did  the  author  of  "Hudibras"  in  that  highly  partizan 
burlesque.  But  in  "Absalom  and  Achitophel"  the  political 
crisis  and  the  personages  portrayed  were  of  sufficient  mo- 
ment to  render  his  genius  noble. 

The  Classical  tradition  was,  of  course,  nearer  akin  to  the 
Latin  races  than  to  the  Anglo-Saxon.  To  the  French,  as  we 
have  seen.  Classicism  meant  simply  new  emphasis  upon 
traits  they  already  possessed.  To  English  Literature  Classi- 
cism meant  an  importation  of  foreign  ideas,  a  new  fertiliza- 
tion of  the  national  genius.  Beginning  with  Dryden,  we 
can  still  detect  the  foreign  flavor  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
first  the  French  flavor,  and  then  the  Latin.  To  say  this  is 
not  to  imply  that  the  foreign  influence  was  in  any  way  unfor- 
tunate. English  Literature  has  never  been  great  except 
as  it  has  been  inspired  from  abroad,  in  Alfred's  time,  in 
Chaucer's,  in  the  sixteenth,  eighteenth,  and  nineteenth  cen- 
turies. The  French  influence  gives  charm  to  Dryden's  prose 
in  the  note  of  social  grace,  ease,  lightness,  and  courtesy. 
o 


194  THE  CLASSICAL  RULE 

What  admirer  of  Milton's  prose,  noble  as  it  is,  would  credit 
it  with  social  grace?  If  Voltaire  could  write  history  in  the 
manner  of  well-bred  gossip,  Dryden  could  write  literary  crit- 
icism with  a  sense  of  social  contact,  having  in  mind  an  audi- 
ence of  artists,  to  whose  taste  and  keen  repartee  his  ideas 
must  be  submitted.  Before  such  an  audience  an  author  does 
not  appear  in  slovenly  undress.  Dryden 's  thought  has  the 
clarity  and  the  finish  of  the  Classical  tradition  largely  because 
he  presents  himself,  French  fashion,  as  a  man  of  the  world 
conversing  with  his  peers,  and  not,  like  Milton,  as  a  cham- 
pion against  all  comers,  prepared  for  mortal  combat.  Milton's 
attitude  is  the  English  one;  for  that  reason  Dryden's  French 
decorum  has  for  the  English  mind  a  special  permanent  charm, 
as  of  something  Romantically  strange. 

The  Latin  charm  of  Dryden  is  found  in  Pope  and  Addison, 
also  in  all  the  eighteenth-century  masters.  No  language, 
not  even  Greek,  has  quite  the  haunting  power  of  Latin.  In 
Dryden  we  find  for  the  first  time  those  echoes  of  Vergil  and 
Horace  and  Lucretius  and  Martial  and  Juvenal,  which  for 
many  an  English  gentleman  have  called  up  memories  of  his 
own  academic  youth,  and  of  the  youth  of  the  world.  A 
truth  expressed  in  Vergil's  lines  seems  always  more  perfect 
and  more  profound  than  in  any  other  later  speech,  such 
fragrance  has  the  classic  poet  acquired  from  the  age-long 
veneration  and  habitual  quotation  of  the  civilized  world.  It 
is  as  a  man  of  the  world,  as  a  cultured  gentleman  rather  than 
as  a  professional  scholar,  that  Dryden  echoes  the  Latin  poets, 
and  from  this  fact  comes  their  magic  in  his  work. 

SuchadeUght  in  the  Classics  is  almost  a  Romantic  pleasure, 
there  is  so  much  elusiveness,  so  much  suggestion  in  it.  Some 
such  suggestion  there  was  for  the  eighteenth  century  in  those 
Latin  epithets  in  Pope's  verse,  which  to  Wordsworth  and  his 
school  seemed  empty  of  poetic  content.  It  would  be  profit- 
able to  examine  as  a  whole  the  Classical  quotations  which 
head  the  "Spectator"  papers;    they  form  a  precious  an- 


THE  CLASSICAL  RULE  195 

thology  of  Latin  quotations,  chosen  by  the  best-trained 
minds  and  the  richest  spirits  of  their  time,  and  so  they  repre- 
sent in  a  unique  way  the  haunting  power  of  Latin  verse  in 
the  spirit  of  cultured  England.  Or  we  can  find  that  same 
power  beautifully  reproduced  in  Thackeray's  "Henry  Es- 
mond," in  the  Horatian  allusions  and  quotations.  Or  for  a 
very  modern  instance,  proving  the  vitality  of  this  classical 
strain,  we  can  find  it  in  Stephen  Phillips'  fine  lines  to  Glad- 
stone :  — 

"Thou  didst  love  old  branches  and  a  book, 
And  Roman  verses  on  an  English  lawn." 

To  speak  of  the  Latin  echoes  in  Dryden  and  the  other 
English  poets  is  to  speak  of  something  quite  apart  from  their 
translations.  From  the  beginning  of  the  Elizabethan 
period  England  had  been  taking  possession  of  all  other  lit- 
eratures through  translation,  and  naturally  the  Classicists 
turned  especially  to  the  ancients.  By  what  steps  the  Clas- 
sical tradition  became  naturalized,  so  that  it  was  a  thing  of 
spirit  rather  than  an  external  influence,  may  be  traced  through 
the  changing  fashions  of  translation.  At  first  the  translators 
hoped  to  reproduce  the  sense  of  the  original;  later  they  were 
content  to  reproduce  its  spirit;  in  some  cases  they  were 
indebted  to  the  original  only  for  the  initial  idea,  and  the 
resulting  work,  whether  from  Boileau's  pen  or  Pope's,  was 
for  all  purposes  original.  Dryden  was  considered  among  the 
legitimate  translators,  though  by  our  standards  he  is  very 
free  with  the  text;  Dr.  Johnson  thought  him,  for  truth  to 
both  letter  and  spirit,  a  prince  of  translators.  But  the  fact 
that  both  he  and  Pope  won  so  much  fame  by  their  transla- 
tions in  an  age  when  many  of  their  readers  must  have  been 
as  familiar  as  they  were  with  the  originals,  would  lead  us  to 
think  that  even  in  their  translations  the  cultured  reader 
found  that  foreign  flavor  of  Classic  allusion  which  I  have 
spoken  of  as  the  power  of  the  Latin  Muses  over  the  English 
mind. 


196  THE  CLASSICAL   RULE 

Dryden  was  the  first  of  the  eighteenth-century  wits.  He 
recognized  the  turn  of  words  or  ideas,  of  all  intellectual  "con- 
ceits," as  an  important  part  of  a  writer's  equipment;  his 
masterly  use  of  the  heroic  couplet,  that  natural  weapon  of 
Enghsh  wit,  exhibited  the  manifold  capacity  of  rimed  verse, 
and  made  this  form  the  Classical  standard.  His  practice  of 
the  Cowley  ode,  that  loose,  meandering  stanza  supposed  to 
be  Pindar's  measure,  gave  what  was  hitherto  only  a  fad,  a 
place  of  true  dignity  among  English  l5rric  forms.  After  him 
the  free  stanza  was  the  natural  mold  of  the  English  ode, 
serving  first,  though  incorrectly,  as  the  standard  of  ancient, 
really  Classical  song,  and  afterwards  as  the  acceptable  me- 
dium of  the  Romantic  lyrists.  In  the  drama  and  indeed  in 
all  departments  of  Literature,  Dryden  had  a  strong  leaning 
toward  the  principles  of  French  criticism,  with  its  unities  of 
one  kind  and  another,  and  its  restraining  laws.  But  he  was 
Enghsh  at  heart,  and  in  his  critical  writing  there  is  great 
reluctance  to  commit  himself  altogether  to  a  tradition  of 
formalism  and  definiteness. 

But  if  Dryden  did  not  give  himself  up  absolutely  to  Clas- 
sicism, there  were  some  lesser  men  who  did.  Thomas  Rymer, 
for  example,  whose  criticism  is  made  important  by  his  method, 
then  new,  of  illustrating  his  principles  by  quotation,  is  often 
strangely  effective  when  he  uses  his  common  sense,  and 
strangely  foolish  when  he  allows  himself  to  be  guided  blindly 
by  the  practice  of  the  ancients.  His  discussion  of  "Othello" 
illustrates  the  incongruity  of  strict  Classicism  on  English  soil. 
"This  Fable,"  he  says,  "is  drawn  from  a  novel  composed  m 
Italian  by  Geraldi  Cinthio,  who  also  was  a  writer  of  tragedies ; 
and  to  that  use  employed  such  of  his  Tales  as  he  judged  proper 
for  the  Stage.  But  with  this  of  the  Moor  he  meddl'd  no 
farther. 

"Shakespear  alters  it  from  the  Original  in  several  particu- 
lars, but  always,  unfortunately,  for  the  worse.  He  bestows  a 
name  on  his  Moore,  and  styles  him  the  Moor  of  Venice,  a 


THE  CLASSICAL  RULE  197 

Note  of  pre-eminence  which  neither  History  nor  Heraldry 
can  allow  him.  Cinthio,  who  knew  him  best,  and  whose 
Creature  he  was,  calls  him  simply  a  Moor.  We  say  the 
Piper  of  Strasbm-gh,  the  Jew  of  Florence,  and,  if  you  please, 
the  Pindar  of  Wakefield;  —  all  upon  record,  and  memorable 
in  their  places.  But  we  see  no  such  cause  for  the  Moor's 
preferment  to  that  dignity."  Rymer  also  objects  to  the 
killing  of  Desdemona,  who  did  not  deserve  death,  and  to 
the  important  part  the  handkerchief  plays:  "The  meanest 
woman  in  the  play  takes  this  Handkerchief  for  a  trifle  below 
her  Husband  to  trouble  his  head  about  it.  Yet  we  find  it 
entered  into  our  poets  head  to  make  a  Tragedy  of  this  Trifle." 
As  a  more  proper  ending  for  the  play,  Rymer  suggests  that 
Desdemona  should  have  dropped  the  handkerchief  some 
place  where  it  might  turn  up  again  naturally  just  as  Othello 
is  about  to  smother  her.  "Then  might  the  Fairey  Napkin 
have  started  up  to  disarm  his  fury  and  stop  his  ungracious 
mouth.  Then  might  she  (in  a  Traunce  for  fear)  have  lain 
as  dead.  Then  might  he,  believing  her  dead,  touched  with 
remorse,  have  honestly  cut  his  own  throat,  by  the  good 
leave  and  with  the  applause  of  all  the  Spectators;  Who 
might  thereupon  have  gone  home  with  a  quiet  mind,  admir- 
ing the  beauty  of  Providence,  fairly  and  truly  represented 
on  the  Theatre." 

If  Rymer  shows  us  the  worst  that  Classicism  can  do  in 
judging  a  literature  that  does  not  answer  to  its  notions  of 
decorum,  we  can  find  happier  illustrations  of  its  best  in  Addi- 
son and  Gray,  true  heirs  of  the  Classical  tradition,  yet  wise 
readers  of  all  literatures.  Addison's  papers  on  "Paradise 
Lost "  are  the  foundation  of  Milton's  modern  fame.  Although 
he  approves  of  the  epic  largely  because  it  conforms  to  the 
ancient  models,  Addison  approaches  it  also  in  that  spirit  of 
free  common  sense  in  which  Sidney  had  allowed  himself  to 
like  "Chevy  Chase."  Addison  finds  in  Milton  truth  to  life 
quite  as  often  as  he  finds  truth  to  the  bookish  traditions; 


198  THE  CLASSICAL  RULE 

and  when  we  praise  him  for  this  breadth  of  sympathy  we 
should  remember  that  he  is  no  early  Romanticist,  but  a 
Classicist,  and  he  illustrates  the  triumph,  not  of  intuition, 
but  of  disciplined  good  taste.  So  the  still  more  scholarly 
Gray  discovered  the  charm  of  early  English,  the  Gothic 
charm,  if  you  please;  in  him  too  Classicism  and  Romanticism 
are  Truth,  which  is  one  thing.  The  lure  of  romance,  and  all 
that  appeal  of  the  Classics  which  has  been  described  here, 
is  in  his  perfect  Latin  poem,  "O  lacrimarum  fons,"  which 
the  eighteenth  century  admired,  and  Byron  loved. 

The  world  that  Addison  and  Steele  show  us  in  the  "Spec- 
tator" should  perhaps  be  compared  with  the  world  Pope 
portrays,  if  we  are  to  see  what  that  most  polite  society  was 
like.  If  Pope  is  nasty,  Addison  very  obviously  is  a  kindly 
idealist,  and  neither  picture  is  the  whole  truth.  And  both 
writers  are  essentially  prose  men;  both  build  their  art  upon 
conversation,  though  Pope  is  a  master  of  glittering  versifi- 
cation, and  Addison  is  the  artist  of  simple  speech.  They 
portray  a  Classical,  therefore  a  highly  conventionalized, 
society;  and  they  are  therefore  both  satirists.  Pope  de- 
pends more  obviously  upon  foreign  models.  He  suggests 
the  Latin  Satirists,  not  only  by  the  conventional  subjects 
and  the  familiar  forms,  but  by  the  scurrility  of  his  tongue. 
Seventeenth-century  England,  even  the  ministerial  part  of 
it,  was  conscientious  to  a  fault  in  rendering  Latin  frankness, 
and  Pope  held  to  the  tradition,  with  incongruous  occasional 
soarings  into  pohte  speech.  In  the  "Rape  of  the  Lock"  he 
is  nearer  to  the  French  models  of  burlesque.  No  poem  is 
more  characteristic  of  a  Classical  age,  which  craves  leisure 
and  learning,  and  implies  a  great  background  of  Literature. 
It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  no  one  can  appreciate  the 
"Rape  of  the  Lock"  who  is  not,  in  the  technical  sense  of 
both  words,  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman.  In  every  line  is 
some  quaint  or  brilliant  suggestion  of  old  Literature,  some 
sly  thrust  at  conventional  manner,  or  some  incomparable 


THE   CLASSICAL  RULE  199 

turn  of  the  social  phrase;  the  story  that  on  the  surface  is  the 
burlesque,  is  but  a  small  part  of  the  poem's  message.  Only 
a  learned  age  or  a  polite  society  could  produce  or  enjoy  this 
monument  of  worldly  wisdom  and  wit. 

The  mention  of  eighteenth-century  satire  brings  Swift  to 
mind,  but  one  hesitates  to  rank  him,  or  Goldsmith  either,- 
with  the  children  of  Classicism.  Swift's  enormous  force  is 
indeed  intellectual,  but  for  obvious  reasons  his  work  lacks 
sanity  and  discipline,  the  foremost  traits  of  Classicism.  In 
Goldsmith  too  there  is  small  sense  of  a  literary  tradition,  noth- 
ing to  compare  with  the  literary  tradition  in  Dryden  or  Pope; 
and  even  the  worldly  wisdom  which  gives  his  masterpiece  is 
not  Classical  but  Irish,  a  wisdom  which,  being  Irish,  is  quite 
undisciplined. 

The  man  who  sums  up  English  Classicism  most  broadly,  as 
Voltaire  sums  up  French  Classicism,  is  Dr.  Johnson.  He  is 
English  to  the  core,  but  he  is  trained  in  the  school  of  common 
sense,  and  order,  and  literary  precept,  and  absolute  stand- 
ards based  on  the  Classics.  He  is  England's  nearest  approach 
to  a  national  academy.  In  his  own  person  he  laid  down  the 
law  for  language,  literature,  and  manners;  he  wrote  the 
official  dictionary  and  the  official  biography  of  his  age;  and 
by  his  immense  personal  force  he  held  the  public  taste  to  the 
path  he  beheved  English  letters  should  take.  Romanticism 
had  no  charms  for  him;  he  ridiculed  Bishop  Percy's  new- 
found ballads  with  terrible  effectiveness.  On  the  other  hand 
he  despised  the  French,  and  when  in  Paris,  he  talked  Latin 
so  as  not  to  give  the  Frenchmen  an  advantage  over  him 
every  time  he  opened  his  mouth.  The  true  Classics  were 
his  teachers,  the  sages  of  Rome  and  Greece.  Yet  in  Johnson 
too  we  feel  that  Classicism  for  the  English  nature  was  an  arti- 
ficial mood.  In  him,  as  in  Dryden,  we  feel  the  lure  of  the 
ancient  tongues,  here  in  a  majestic  prose  that  suggests  Rome. 
But  its  charm  was  vagrant,  and  has  kept  no  abiding  place  in 
English  speech. 


200  THE   CLASSICAL  RULE 

Classicism  ought  to  have  been  at  home,  if  anjrwhere,  in 
Italy;  but  for  various  reasons  it  meant  almost  as  little  to 
Vergil's  country  as  it  did  to  Germany.  Political  tyranny 
had  chained  the  Italian  inspiration,  until  its  only  activity 
was  in  imitation.  Something  like  the  French  institution 
was  formed  in  1692,  in  the  Arcadian  Academy,  whose  mem- 
bers, for  the  more  natural  composition  of  poetry,  masked 
themselves  as  Arcadian  shepherds.  Their  purpose  was  to 
keep  alive  the  best  poetic  tradition  by  their  own  insatiable 
writing.  Other  academies,  less  famous,  existed  in  various 
cities  at  an  earlier  date,  and  before  some  of  them  the  youth- 
ful Milton,  as  he  tells  us,  read  his  verses  and  won  ap- 
plause. 

A  few  Italian  writers  found  their  inspiration  in  England. 
Baretti,  friend  of  Johnson  and  Reynolds,  imitated  the  "Spec- 
tator," as  did  Gaspare  Gozzi,  brother  of  the  dramatist;  and 
Parini  wrote  his  ''Giorno,"  borrowing  from  Thomson  and 
Pope.  In  the  drama  it  was  natural,  perhaps,  that  the  Classic 
tragedy,  reinforced  by  the  example  of  Comeille  and  Racine, 
should  give  the  model.  Maffei's  "Merope,"  admired  by 
Matthew  Arnold,  but  otherwise  little  known  to  English 
readers,  preceded  Voltaire's  play  on  the  same  theme.  And 
in  Alfieri  the  Classic  tragedy  became  vitalized,  not  so  much  by 
the  spirit  of  Classicism  as  by  a  passion  for  freedom,  a  patri- 
otic idealism  that  suggests  the  new  Romantic  age. 

In  Germany  Classicism  was  a  late  development,  and  it 
fared  ill.  The  close  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  saw  the  ex- 
hausted country  overrun  with  foreign  influences,  chiefly 
French;  and  it  might  have  seemed  as  if  the  traditions  of 
Louis  XIV  would  have  spread  easily  into  a  country  that  had 
just  then  little  literary  impulse  of  its  own.  But  the  love  of 
the  fatherland  rendered  neutral  all  foreign  influence.  The 
so-called  language  societies,  not  unlike  the  French  or  Italian 
academies,  were  organized  to  drive  foreign  terms  from  the 
German  tongue.     Opitz  pleaded  for  the  restoration  of  Ger- 


THE  CLASSICAL  RULE  201 

man  as  a  literary  instrument,  and  reformed  its  versification, 
unfortunately  introducing  the  French  alexandrine.  A  few 
generations  later  Bodner,  the  translator  of  "Paradise  Lost," 
was  pleading  the  cause  of  English  Literature,  while  Gottsched 
was  discountenancing  Shakspere  and  admiring  Corneille 
and  Racine,  because  in  them  nature  was  disciplined  by 
reason.  But  whether  they  admired  English  or  French  mod- 
els of  taste,  the  German  poets  had  little  recourse  to  the  true 
Classics,  Latin  and  Greek;  and  their  Literature,  m  spite  of 
their  Classical  scholarship,  was  to  become  great,  like  the 
modern  Italian,  through  patriotism.  With  Klopstock's 
hexameters  and  Voss'  translation  of  Homer  Classicism 
might  seem  to  give  evidence  of  itself;  but  Klopstock's  popu- 
larity was  founded  on  his  lyric  genius  as  much  as  on  his 
Miltonic  epic,  and  the  hexameter  in  German  is  as  truly  an 
exotic  as  it  is  in  English.  Indeed,  when  Lessing  finally  dis- 
posed of  two  of  the  three  famous  unities,  showing  that  only 
unity  of  action  is  necessary  in  the  drama,  Classicism  in  Ger- 
many was  practically  dead.  The  Classical  influence  in 
Goethe,  for  example,  came  rather  from  contact  with  antique 
art,  and  from  his  Italian  journey,  than  from  the  body  of 
literary  tradition  we  have  been  considering.  The  national 
spirit  was  growing  in  Germany,  a  Gothic  spirit,  and  French 
Classicism  never  gave  more  than  a  veneer  to  the  rugged 
German  imagination. 

Perhaps  this  brief  glance  over  several  literatures  has  shown 
us  what  was  the  influence  of  Classicism  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  It  was  an  age  of  reason,  schooled  in  very  definite 
tenets,  which  were  based,  or  supposed  to  be  based,  on  the 
practice  of  the  Roman  and  Greek  writers.  It  was  an  age  of 
severe  literary  discipline ;  it  gave  its  attention  to  the  externals 
of  technic  more  than  to  the  mystery  of  life;  and  on  its  worst 
side  it  ran  to  dead  formula  and  meaningless  phrase.  Against 
this  outworn  paraphernalia  of  expression  the  Romanticists 


202  THE   CLASSICAL   RULE 

rebelled;  but  we  have  seen  that  it  is  a  mistake  to  think  of 
Romanticism  as  altogether  a  reaction  from  the  Classic  spirit. 
The  discipline  of  the  eighteenth  century  gave  England  the 
poetry  of  Wordsworth  and  Tennyson  and  Arnold,  by 
as  natural  an  evolution  as  that  by  which  it  gave  France 
her  modern  masters.  If  it  is  the  spirit,  the  soul  of  life,  for 
which  we  now  seek  to  discover  laws,  it  was  formerly  for  the 
expression  of  life  that  Classicism  formulated  its  principles; 
but  we  cannot  say  which  point  of  view  is  older,  or  which  is 
right.  In  time  we  shall  be  Classicists,  setting  reason  above 
emotion;  and  afterwards  we  shall  rediscover  Romanticism, 
whatever  Romanticism  may  be.  Already,  perhaps,  there  is 
a  perceptible  turning  back  to  the  world's  great  books  for 
standards  and  models;  much  of  the  criticism,  for  example,  of 
Mr.  Howells  or  Mr.  James  appears  to  set  up  rigid  and  narrow 
measurements  for  the  novel,  in  the  very  spirit  of  Classicism, 
and  in  the  same  spirit  scholars  seek  to  define  the  short-story. 
Perhaps  our  children's  children  will  hearken  to  a  new  Words- 
worth, who  will  bid  them  take  for  their  teachers,  not  books, 
but  "the  silence  that  is  in  the  starry  sky."  Doubtless  they 
will  think  the  message  new.  But  for  the  comfort  of  Classi- 
cists we  may  reply  that  this  is  no  newer  than  the  message 
of  a  poet-herdsman,  bred  like  Wordsworth  among  the  hills, 
two  thousand  years  ago:  "Seek  him  who  maketh  the  seven 
stars  and  Orion,  and  turneth  the  shadow  of  death  into  the 
morning." 


THE  ROMANTIC  EMANCIPATION 

By  Curtis  Hidden  Page,  Sometime  Adjunct  Professor 
OF  the  Romance  Languages  and  Literatures 

You  may  remember  that  my  predecessor  in  this  course  of 
lectures  left  me  impaled  upon  the  longer  and  sharper  horn  of  a 
very  serious  dilemma  —  the  definition  of  Classicism  and  Ro- 
manticism. He  defined  Classicism  clearly  and  finally,  and 
left  to  me  what  he  admitted  to  be  the  harder  task  of  defining 
Romanticism.  It  would  be  simple  enough  to  answer  that  the 
Romantic  is  in  every  respect  the  opposite  of  the  Classic ; 
but  such  a  definition  would  not  be  altogether  true,  even  so  far 
as  it  goes,  and  it  certainly  would  not  go  one  tenth  so  far  as  it 
ought.  It  would  hardly  be  fair  to  wriggle  off  the  dilemma- 
horn  in  such  fashion ;  but  I  think  I  am  justified  in  pulling 
myself  from  it  by  grasping  at  another  statement  which  does 
seem  to  me  altogether  true ;  namely,  that  if  the  Classic,  as 
he  has  so  well  described  it,  is  the  clear,  the  orderly,  the  definite, 
then  the  Romantic  is  the  vague,  the  unconfined,  the  indefinite 
and  indefinable,  "the  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land,  the 
consecration,  and  the  poet's  dream."  Therefore  I  am  not 
only  under  no  obfigation  to  define  it,  but  if  I  did,  I  should  by 
that  very  act  be  denying  and  destroying  it.  I  may,  however, 
attempt,  not  to  define,  but  to  describe  the  Romantic,  as  op- 
posed to  the  Classic,  by  some  or,  better,  by  many  of  its  promi- 
nent characteristics  (for  it  has  many).  Perhaps  the  error  of 
most  critics  who  have  attempted  thus  far  to  define  or  describe 

20.3 


204  THE   ROMANTIC  EMANCIPATION 

Romanticism  has  been  that  of  fixing  upon  some  one,  or  some 
two  or  three,  of  these  characteristics,  as  the  essential  definition 
or  adequate  description  of  the  whole  movement. 

Certain  it  is  that  many  of  the  definitions  thus  far  given 
are  unsatisfactory  and  inadequate.  Brunetiere,  with  his  sys- 
tematizing method,  makes  the  expression  and  even  exaggera- 
tion of  the  ego  —  le  moi  —  to  be  the  whole  of  Romanticism. 
Professor  Beers  and  others,  following  Heine,  make  medieval- 
ism its  central  motive,  though  it  must  be  noted  that  Professor 
Beers  admits  the  inadequacy  of  this.  Those  who  descend 
directly  from  Rousseau,  or  who  love  most  of  all  the  nature 
poets,  make  the  "return  to  nature"  —  itself  a  vague  phrase 
with  many  meanings  —  to  be  the  essence  of  Romanticism. 
Those  who  feel  most  deeply  the  philosophical  and  ethical 
significance  of  the  movement  will  agree  with  Brandes  when  he 
says  that  the  preference  of  progress  to  attainment,  of  the 
search  for  truth  to  the  possession  of  it,  of  the  quest  to  the  goal, 
is  the  foundation  of  Romantic  poetry.  Those  to  whom 
artistry  and  the  esthetic  impression  mean  most  will  follow 
Walter  Pater  in  making  a  certain  "strangeness  added  to 
beauty,"  by  contrast  with  the  classic  "order  in  beauty,"  its 
essential  characteristic.  This,  by  the  way,  and  I  think  the 
point  has  never  been  noted,  should  remind  us  directly  of  the 
definition  of  Romanticism  originally  given  by  NovaHs  him- 
self, as  "that  which  brings  us  a  sensation  of  agreeable  sur- 
prise" ("Was  in  angenehmer  Weise  uns  befremdet").  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton,  in  his  masterly  article  introducing  the  third 
volume  of  Chambers'  "New  Encj^clopedia  of  English  Litera- 
ture," has  in  his  very  title  given  the  briefest  and  perhaps  the 
most  nearly  adequate  definition  of  Romanticism,  in  the  phrase 
"The  Renascence  of  Wonder."  A  proper  emphasis  should  be 
given  to  the  first  as  well  as  to  the  second  of  the  two  chief  words 
in  this  phrase.  The  Romantic  movement  is  in  fact  another 
Renaissance,  as  full  of  freshness  and  newness  of  life,  as  in- 
tense in  its  vigor  and  its  energy,  as  that  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 


THE   ROMANTIC  EMANCIPATION  205 

tury ;  and  even  more  than  that  of  the  sixteenth  century  it  is 
not  only  a  rebirth  but  a  new  birth,  the  beginning  of  what  will 
in  future  ages  be  called  modern  hfe.  If  I  were  to  repeat 
what  I  have  spoken  of  as  the  error  of  previous  students  in 
attempting  to  make  one  characteristic  of  this  movement  the 
essential  or  the  most  prominent  one,  I  should  choose  an  aspect 
which  I  think  has  not  even  been  mentioned  before;  namely, 
that  it  is  the  beginning  of  democracy  in  Literature,  of  the  ex- 
pression in  Literature  of  the  life  of  every  man  and  of  all  the 
people  ;  that  it  at  last  transformed  the  ancient  Aristocracy  of 
Letters,  which  had  been  made  even  more  aristocratic  than  ever 
by  the  Renaissance  and  by  the  Classical  Rule,  into  a  true 
Republic  of  Letters  ;  and  prepared  the  way  for  the  democratic, 
the  ail-inclusively  realistic,  and  even  the  social,  literature  of 
the  future. 

Looked  at  from  the  height  of  the  centuries,  what  did  the 
change  from  feudalism  to  nationalism  and  royalism,  made  in 
the  sixteenth  and  early  seventeenth  centuries,  amount  to, 
as  compared  with  the  change  from  aristocracy  and  royalism 
to  democracy  made  by  the  French  Revolution?  What 
broadening  of  life  to  include  more  of  humanity  was  effected 
by  the  Humanists?  What  abolition  or  even  curtailment  of 
special  privilege?  And  since  hfe  and  Literature  necessarily 
go  together,  if  the  historian  of  two  or  three  centuries  from 
now,  having  attained  his  perspective,  will  look  back  to  the 
French  Revolution  and  alhed  movements  as  the  beginning  of 
modern  life,  vnW  not  the  hterary  historian  of  that  future 
century  likewise  necessarily  look  back  to  the  Romantic 
movement  as  the  beginning  of  Modern  Literature?  This  is 
the  first  of  many  points  which  I  must  only  suggest,  briefly 
and  dogmatically. 

To  come  back  now  to  the  purely  literary  question,  and  even 
to  the  somewhat  technical  and  academic  question  of  what 
Romanticism  is,  I  shall  describe  it,  first,  technically  and 
academically,  as  distinguished  from  Classicism ;   and  second. 


206  THE  ROMANTIC   EMANCIPATION 

historically,  as  a  movement  which  swept  over  the  whole 
western  world  during  the  last  half  of  the  eighteenth  and  first 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  almost  completely  dominating 
English  and  French  Literature  from  about  1800  to  about 
1848,  entering  as  a  chief  element  into  the  greatest,  and  even 
the  so-called  Classical,  period  of  German  Literature,  giving 
Italian  Literature  its  Leopardi,  Manzoni,  and  others,  and 
American  Literature  its  Bryant,  Longfellow,  Emerson,  Poe, 
and,  considered  as  the  Uterature  of  democracy,  its  Whitman. 
The  technical  distinction  between  Classicism  and  Roman- 
ticism is  one  of  the  eternal  contrasts  of  Literature,  both  in 
theory  and  in  fact,  exactly  as  is  the  contrast  between  ideaUsm 
and  reahsm.  The  first  of  these  distinctions  is  as  universally 
apphcable  as  the  other  ;  it  can  be  used  in  judging,  describing, 
and  characterizing  any  race,  nation,  epoch,  or  individual,  in 
the  history  of  Literature,  just  as  well  as  in  describing  the 
beginnings  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  the  contrast  of 
that  period  with  the  preceding  one.  If  the  distinction  between 
Romanticism  and  Classicism  is  not  as  commonly  used  and  as 
popularly  understood  as  that  between  realism  and  ideahsm, 
this  may  be  due  in  large  part  to  the  varied  meanings  which 
have  been  given  to  the  words  Classic  and  Romantic.  Varia- 
tions in  meaning  of  the  word  Classic  have  been  pointed  out 
in  the  preceding  lecture.  Not  to  go  back  over  the  origins  of 
the  word  and  its  most  popular  use  in  modern  times  and  even 
to-day,  as  designating  the  best  in  the  literatures  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  we  must  note  that  its  secondary  use,  as  designating 
the  best  in  any  Hterature,  is  not  only  popular,  but  has  been 
clearly  sanctioned  by  the  authoritative  critics  of  England, 
France,  and  Germany  ;  by  Matthew  Arnold,  when  he  defines 
Classic  as  "that  which  belongs  to  the  class  of  the  very  best 
(for  this  is  the  true  and  right  meaning  of  the  word  classic, 
classical),"  and,  on  the  whole,  by  Sainte-Beuve  in  his  essay 
entitled  "Qu'est-ce  qu'un  classique?"  where  he  describes  it 
in  the  words  so  often  quoted,  and  so  curiously  mistranslated 


THE   ROMANTIC  EMANCIPATION  207 

by  Walter  Pater,  as  that  which  is  "energique,  frais,et  dispos  "; 
that  is,  work  which  has  the  fullness,  freshness,  and  vigor  of 
Hfe  that  make  it  worthy  and  able  to  live,  down  through  the 
centuries  ;  and  by  Goethe,  before  Sainte-Beuve,  in  almost  the 
same  terms  and  I  think  with  exactly  the  same  conception. 
Both  these  meanings  of  the  word  Classic  must  be  dismissed 
as  completely  as  possible  from  the  mind  in  order  to  appreciate 
its  technical  and  universally  applicable  meaning,  as  contrasted 
with  Romantic.  Failure  so  to  clear  the  mind  of  convention 
has  given  rise  to  some  amusing  blunders  and  still  more  amus- 
ing paradoxes  in  the  history  of  literary  criticism.  There  is, 
for  instance,  Stendhal's  famous  and  often-quoted  definition  of 
Classic  taste  as  liking  that  which  our  grandfathers  hked,  and 
of  Romantic  taste  as  liking  that  which  we  really  like  ourselves. 
Deschanel  has  written  several  volumes  on  "Le  Romantisme 
des  classiques,"  his  very  title  being  based  on  this  confusion  in 
the  use  of  the  word  Classic  as,  on  the  one  hand,  that  which  is 
now  accepted  as  good  in  Literature,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  which  has  certain  definite  characteristics  as  opposed  to 
the  Romantic  ;  and  of  the  Romantic  as  primarily  that  which 
revolts  against  the  accepted  Classic  standards,  as  well  as  hav- 
ing certain  definite  characteristics  of  its  own.  He  shows  very 
cleverly  that  the  writers  now  accepted  as  classics  (in  the 
popular  sense)  were  almost  always  rebels  and  even  leaders  of 
revolt  in  their  own  time,  and  by  the  very  originahty  of  their 
achievements  imposed  themselves  upon  the  admiration  of 
future  times  ;  as  was  the  case  with  Corneille,  Moliere,  Pascal, 
and  even  Racine,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  or  Chateau- 
briand and  Victor  Hugo  in  the  nineteenth.  That  is  to  say, 
those  whom  we  call  Classics  to-day  are  merely  Romanticists 
who  have  arrived,  des  romantiques  arrives.  On  the  contrary, 
the  works  which  in  their  own  day  were  considered  classics, 
conforming  to  all  the  accepted  rules  and  conventions,  possess- 
ing that  "order  in  beauty"  which  Pater  speaks  of,  and  lack- 
ing just  that  "strangeness  added  to  beauty"  which  any  new 


208  THE   ROMANTIC  EMANCIPATION 

revelation  of  beauty,  whether  Classic  or  Romantic  in  type,  must 
have  —  these  works,  being  classics  for  their  own  day,  are  not 
so  for  posterity.  Plentiful  examples  may  be  found,  such  as 
the  dramas  of  Voltaire,  the  novels  of  Mile,  de  Scudery,  the 
lyric  poetry  of  Jean-Baptiste  (not  Jean-Jacques)  Rousseau, 
and  the  host  of  minor  poets  in  any  epoch  who  follow  the  fash- 
ions of  the  day.  For  lack  of  being  Romantic  enough  in  their 
own  time,  they  have  failed  to  become  classics  for  future  ages. 
It  is  a  pretty  paradox,  useful  chiefly  for  showing  the  need  of  a 
clearer  and  more  technical  understanding  of  the  words  used. 

This,  then,  is  the  real  contrast :  the  Classic  appeals  to  the 
reason ;  it  seeks  proportion,  harmony,  completeness,  perfec- 
tion of  form,  clearness,  universality,  the  typical  and  the  eter- 
nal,—  in  short,  beauty  finished  and  absolute.  The  Romantic 
appeals  to  the  imagination :  it  seeks  effectiveness  rather  than 
completeness,  emotion  or  sensation  rather  than  thought,  color 
and  richness  rather  than  form,  suggestion  rather  than  clear 
and  full  expression,  melody  rather  than  harmony,  the  indi- 
vidual rather  than  the  typical,  the  accidental  rather  than  the 
universal,  the  concrete  rather  than  the  general,  the  transitory 
rather  than  the  eternal,  the  fragmentary  rather  than  the 
finished, — in  short,  beauty  relative  and  transient,  with  the 
charm,  suggestiveness,  and  poignancy  of  its  very  incomplete- 
ness. 

The  Classic  temper  seeks  for  calm,  the  Romantic  for 
excitement.  The  Classicist  may  have  passions  as  intense  as 
the  Romanticist,  or  more  so  ;  but  the  Classicist  controls  his 
passions,  while  the  Romanticist  dehghts  to  be  carried  away  by 
his.  One  beheves  in  self-possession,  the  other  in  enthusiasm. 
The  Classicist's  motto  is  /Ar/Sev  ayav,  ne  quid  nimis;  he 
has  the  sense  of  measure,  as  well  as  the  sense  of  form ;  tem- 
perance in  the  whole,  and  balance  of  all  the  parts,  are  his 
ideals  for  a  life  or  for  a  work  of  art.  The  Romanticist  is 
unconfined  by  any  of  these  hmitations  ;  gladly  he  exaggerates, 
so  he  may  ]jut  move  you ;   he  seeks  extreme  effectiveness  in 


THE   ROMANTIC  EMANCIPATION  209 

each  part  of  his  work,  each  moment  of  his  Hfe  or  of  the  hfe  he ' 
depicts,  without  much  regard  to  the  whole ;  he  knows  not 
when  to  stop,  not  having  considered  the  parts  with  relation  to 
the  whole,  nor  seen  the  end  from  the  beginning.  Power  and 
not  perfection  is  his  ideal.  His  work  is  imcontrolled,  over- 
flowing, confused,  but  rich  in  Ufe,  energy,  aspiration.  The 
Classic  ideal  has  been  briefly  summed  up  in  a  passage  of  Mon- 
taigne :  "  The  virtue  of  the  soul  does  not  consist  in  flying  high, 
but  in  walking  orderly ;  its  grandeur  does  not  exercise  itself 
in  grandeur  but  in  mediocrity  ;  .  .  .  nor  so  much  in  mounting 
and  pressing  forward,  as  in  knowing  how  to  govern  and  cir- 
cumscribe itself  .  .  .  demonstrating  itself  better  in  modera- 
tion than  in  eminence."  As  against  this,  we  may  set  the 
Romantic  conception  condensed  into  a  single  phrase  by 
Madame  de  Stael :  "The  greatest  things  that  man  has  done, 
he  owes  to  the  torturing  sense  of  the  incompleteness  of  his 
fate."  The  Classicist  finds  his  ideal  in  the  real,  his  achieve- 
ment in  the  possible,  his  highest  aspiration  in  a  reasoned  sub- 
mission to  fate  or  to  "whatever  gods  there  be."  The  Roman- 
ticist strives  to  snatch  his  ideal  from  some  distant  star,  to 
catch  not  time  but  eternity  by  the  forelock,  to  grasp  the  infi- 
nite with  finite  hands  ;  he  necessarily  fails  in  his  attempt,  but  he 
heartens  himself  with  the  belief  that  life  or  art  should  be 
judged  not  by  its  achievement  but  by  its  aspirations,  that  "a 
man's  reach  should  exceed  his  grasp."  He  says  with  Brown- 
ing's Rabbi  Ben  Ezra  :  — 

"  What  I  aspired  to  be 
And  was  not,  comforts  me." 

Philosophically,  this  aspect  of  Romanticism  finds  its  most 
characteristic  expression  in  Fichte's  "Science  of  Knowledge"; 
poetically,  in  the  works  of  Shelley  and  Browning. 

A  few  examples  of  the  contrast  may  be  suggested.  It  is 
the  Greek  Drama  as  against  the  Elizabethan  ;  Lear,  Hamlet, 
Cordelia,   with  their   unsolved  tragic  problems,   as  against 


210  THE   ROMANTIC  EMANCIPATION 

CEdipus,  Orestes,  Antigone.  Taking  examples  within  the 
literature  of  one  nation,  we  may  set  Racine's  Andromaque 
against  Victor  Hugo's  Triboulet,  as  examples  of  parental 
devotion ;  or  Milton's  Satan  against  Bjo-on's  Manfred  and 
Browning's  Caliban,  as  embodiments  of  revolt.  As  examples 
of  prose  style  we  may  set  that  of  Thucydides  against  De 
Quincey's.  Of  the  two  elements  which  make  up  plastic 
beauty  —  form  and  color  —  the  first  is  Classic,  the  second  Ro- 
mantic ;  so  we  may  set  Greek  sculpture  over  against  modern 
painting  as  typical  Classic  and  Romantic  arts ;  within  each 
art,  however,  we  may  distinguish  Classic  and  Romantic 
epochs ;  in  French  painting,  for  instance,  the  seventeenth  as 
against  the  nineteenth  century ;  in  sculpture,  Phidias  as 
against  Michelangelo  ;  or  in  music.  Bach  and  Haydn  as  against 
Schubert,  Chopin,  and  BerUoz. 

Classic  art  is  the  highest ;  for  its  end  is  perfection.  Its  ideal 
is  beautiful  reasonableness,  and  the  creation  of  a  reasonable 
beauty,  an  ideal  worthy  especially  to  be  considered  by  the 
Northern  peoples,  who  are  not  in  the  habit  of  uniting  beauty 
and  reason,  either  in  their  conceptions  or  in  their  practice ; 
relying  as  they  do  on  a  supposed  separate  faculty,  which  they 
vaguely  call  the  imagination,  for  the  creation  of  beauty. 
But  Classic  art  attains  its  peculiar  end  more  rarely  than  the 
Romantic.  True  Classic  work  must  be  shaped  from  within 
outward,  must  grow  in  the  mind  of  the  artist  to  perfect  form, 
must  be  fused  by  the  fire  of  his  genius  before  it  can  be  run  into 
the  perfect  mold.  Only  baser  metal  can  be  bent  and  shaped 
without  the  aid  of  that  fire. 

Suppose  that  Classic  art,  with  the  characteristics  which  I 
have  mentioned,  be  taken  as  a  model  for  imitation.  Try  to 
be  orderly,  and  you  will  be  tame ;  to  be  calm,  self-possessed, 
measured,  and  you  will  be  dull ;  to  be  typical,  universal,  and 
you  will  be  commonplace ;  to  be  finished,  and  you  will  only 
be  polished.     Art  becomes  artifice,  form  becomes  formality, 


THE  ROMANTIC  EMANCIPATION  211 

order  becomes  narrowness,  reason  becomes  rationalism ;  in 
short,  the  Classic  or  the  neo-Classic  becomes  pseudo-Classic. 
It  is  against  the  pseudo-Classic,  not  agamst  the  true  Classic, 
that  the  so-called  Romantic  revolt  of  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century  is  directed.  This  is  a  very  important  point,  and 
one  which  brings  us  to  the  historical  aspect  of  our  subject. 

For,  as  we  have  classified  different  arts  and  individuals  by 
the  classic-romantic  criterion,  so  we  can  classify  different 
nations  and  epochs  in  the  history  of  Literature.  The  Greek 
and  Latin  Literatures  are  Classic  ;  so,  on  the  whole,  are  the 
more  recent  Literatures  of  the  nations  of  the  South  of  Europe, 
while  the  nations  of  the  North  are  Romantic  ;  this  is  of  course 
the  distinction  first  made  by  Madame  de  Stael  in  1800. 
France  occupies  a  middle  position,  though  naturally  and  by 
inheritance  tending  rather  toward  genuine  Classicism.  Tak- 
ing the  whole  of  European  Literature  by  epochs,  we  may  say 
that  the  Middle  Ages  were  a  Romantic  period.  The  Renais- 
sance is  more  difficult  to  define,  but  may  perhaps  be  called  a 
Classical  epoch  with  a  Romantic  temper ;  in  England  the 
Classical  character  of  the  age  was  almost  obhterated  by  the 
strong  Romantic  spirit  of  the  nation.  In  the  seventeenth 
century  the  Romantic  temper  of  the  Renaissance  was  sub- 
dued, and  Classicism  gradually  came  to  dominate  all  Europe, 
under  the  leadership  of  France.  In  the  eighteenth  century 
Classicism  itself  became  imitative  and  second-hand.  The 
late  seventeenth  century  was  a  genuine  Classical  epoch,  espe- 
cially in  France.     The  eighteenth  century  was  pseudo-Classic. 

Historically  considered,  therefore,  the  Romantic  movement 
of  the  late  eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  century  is  first  of  all 
a  revolt  against  the  pseudo-Classic,  against  rationaUsm,  con- 
vention, artifice,  dullness,  narrowness,  formality,  and  rules  of 
all  kinds.  This  revolt  soon  becomes  revolution,  emancipation, 
and  the  complete  creation  of  a  new  society.  Freedom  is  its 
war-cry,  individual  feeling  its  basis  of  citizenship  in  the  new 
republic  of  letters.    The  liberty  of  the  individual,  and  the 


212  THE   ROMANTIC  EMANCIPATION 

right  to  expression  in  Literature  of  each  individual's  inmost 
and  most  peculiar  feelings,  whether  typical  or  not,  whether 
rational  or  not,  whether  social  or  anti-social,  —  in  short,  the 
rights  of  the  individual  ego  to  complete  independence  and  self- 
expression,  —  that  is  what  the  Romantic  movement  first  of  all 
stands  for.  So,  very  definitely,  it  is  the  French  Revolution 
in  Literature.  Pascal  had  said,  "the  ego  is  hateful."  Rous- 
seau begins  his  "Confessions"  by  saying,  "I  am  like  no  man 
that  I  have  ever  seen  ;  I  dare  to  believe  I  am  unlike  any  man 
that  exists."  For  this  very  reason  he  feels  justified  in  writing 
his  Confessions.  That  book,  from  the  amazing  address  to 
the  Supreme  Being  which  we  find  on  the  first  page,  to  the 
insanity  of  the  end,  is  egotism  run  mad.  Montaigne  has  been 
called  an  egotist ;  but  he  was  a  social  egotist ;  he  wrote  for 
companionship;  "if  there  be  any  person  in  need  of  good  com- 
pany, in  France  or  elsewhere,  who  can  like  my  humor,  let  him 
but  whistle,  and  I  will  come  running."  Rousseau,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  an  unsocial  and  anti-social  egotist.  Yet  this 
emphasis  upon  individual  feeling  and  its  expression,  of  which 
Rousseau  is  the  extreme  example,  renewed  Literature.  It 
brought  back  the  lyric  mood,  and  it  brought  back  sentiment, 
which  had  been  banished  for  more  than  a  century.  At  first 
sentiment  and  sentimentality  were  not  distinguished  from 
each  other ;  we  find  sentimentahty  disagreeably  predominat- 
ing in  the  whole  tribe  of  Rousseau's  successors  ;  but  it  was  the 
return  of  sentiment  which  made  possible  Goethe's  early  lyric 
and  all  that  followed  in  Germany  ;  Musset,  Lamartine,  Victor 
Hugo,  and  the  rest  in  France  ;  and  Enghsh  poetry  from  Burns 
to  Tennyson. 

The  love  of  nature,  or  the  return  to  nature,  is  usually,  and 
rightly,  spoken  of  as  one  of  the  chief  characteristics  of  the 
Romantic  movement.  To  follow  nature  had,  however,  been 
one  of  the  chief  precepts  of  the  Classicists  from  Aristotle  to 
Boileau  and  Pope.  It  might  be  better  to  say  that  the 
Romantic  movement  is  characterized  by  a  complete  change 


THE   ROMANTIC  EMANCIPATION  213 

in  the  sense  of  the  word  nature.  To  the  Classicist,  nature 
meant,  to  be  sure,  the  whole  universe  of  created  things ;  but 
his  universe  was  anthropocentric.  Man,  the  end  and  aim 
of  all  things,  the  center  and  type  of  nature,  the  microcosmos, 
held  for  him  a  false  place  in  the  universe.  The  Romanticists 
went  to  the  other  extreme,  as  when  Wordsworth  said 

One  impulse  from  a  vernal  wood 

May  teach  you  more  of  man, 
Of  moral  evil  and  of  good, 

Tlian  all  the  sages  can. 

This  false  tendency  was  soon  corrected,  however.  Not  to 
mention  Scott  and  Byron,  Goethe  and  Balzac,  it  was  not  long 
before  Browning  came  with  his  intense  interest  in  "Man's 
thoughts,  loves,  hates,"  and  with  his  whole  emphasis  laid 
upon  "The  incidents  in  the  development  of  a  Soul."  Mean- 
while the  love  of  nature,  in  the  Romantic  sense,  had  not  only 
produced  Wordsworth,  but  had  been  the  inspiration  of  so 
many  poets  and  prose-writers  that  the  mere  list  of  their  names 
would  take  more  time  than  we  can  afford. 

After  personal  feeling,  and  after  observation  of  the  world 
about  us,  the  chief  source  of  inspiration  for  Modern  Literature 
is  to  be  found  in  the  accumulated  treasure  of  the  race  —  in 
the  ideals  and  stories,  the  myths  and  religions,  of  the  past; 
and  in  the  literary  and  artistic  models  in  which  this  life  of  the 
past  has  expressed  itself.  This  source  of  inspiration  and 
imagery  is  for  modern  Europe  threefold :  the  literatures  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  with  their  mythology ;  Biblical  Literature 
and  the  Christian  religion;  and  the  Middle  Ages  with  their 
chivalric  ideals  and  romantic  stories,  some  of  these  coming 
down  from  still  earlier  ages  and  bringing  with  them  the  body 
of  northern  mythology  and  folklore.  The  last  of  these  was 
perhaps  the  most  important  for  our  modern  Romantic  move- 
ment; but  its  relative  importance  has  been  greatly  over- 
emphasized.    Not   only   medievalism,   but   a   renewed   and 


214  THE  ROMANTIC  EMANCIPATION 

broadened  interest  in  all  the  past,  characterized  the  Romantic 
movement.  It  was  not  reactionary;  it  had  no  desire  to  go 
back  and  hve  in  the  Middle  Ages,  or  even  to  follow  closely 
their  hterary  models.  It  was  merely  freeing  itself  from  a 
narrow  tutelage,  and  demanding  that  all  three  of  these  chief 
sources  of  inspiration  and  imagery,  not  the  classical  alone, 
should  be  its  free  and  full  possession.  The  neo-classic  period 
had  willfully  impoverished  itself.  The  Romantic  movement 
reclaimed  its  natural  heritage  and  entered  upon  the  enjoy- 
ment of  all  the  riches  of  the  past.  There  was  no  diminution 
of  interest  in  the  classics  during  the  Romantic  period ;  on  the 
contrary,  there  sprang  up  a  more  intelligent  enthusiasm  for 
them  and  a  truer  knowledge  of  them ;  so  much  so  that  a 
genuine  classic  revival  is  a  part  of  the  Romantic  movement 
itself,  which  in  its  revolt  against  the  pseudo-classic  appeals 
to  the  true  classic  for  justification.  This,  and  the  awakening 
of  the  historic  sense  which  goes  with  it,  help  to  account  for 
the  classical  period  of  German  Literature  after  Goethe's 
"  ItaUenische  Reise";  for  the  "Voyage  d'Anacharsis,"  and 
for  Andr^  Chenier,  in  France;  for  the  classical  aspects  of 
Keats  and  Shelley,  and  for  Landor,  in  England ;  and  for  the 
transformation  of  art  criticism  and  history,  beginning  in  Eng- 
land with  Stuart  and  Revett,  and  in  Germany  with  Winckel- 
mann.  The  renewed  importance  of  the  Bible  and  Christian 
story  as  an  inspiration  for  art  and  Literature  is  a  point  which 
we  need  not  dwell  on,  simply  noting  the  wide  influence  of 
Milton,  and  the  fact  that  even  France  repudiated  Boileau's 
rule  against  using  "les  mysteres  chretiennes  "  as  material, 
and  produced  in  Chateaubriand's  "Genie  du  Christianisme " 
the  chief  plea  for  such  use. 

At  the  same  time  there  came,  in  all  Europe,  a  deep 
spiritual  "revival,"  in  revolt  against  the  rationalism,  the 
utilitarianism,  the  superficial  intellectuality,  and  the  general 
"  matter-of-f act-ness "  of  the  eighteenth  century.  There 
came  a  new  sense  of  the  wonder  and  glory  of  the  universe,  of 


THE   ROMANTIC  EMANCIPATION  215 

the  spiritual  essence  of  all  things,  of  the  immanence  of  divine 
life  in 

.  .  .  the  light  of  setting  suns 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air. 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  m  the  mind  of  man. 

This  is  the  "Renascence  of  Wonder,"  and  it  is  more.  It  re- 
news religion  and  transforms  philosophy.  To  it  belongs  all 
"subjective"  thinking,  which,  just  as  much  as  subjective 
feeling  and  lyric  expression,  is  of  the  "Romantic"  school,  in 
the  technical  sense  of  that  word.  It  informs  all  that  is  most 
significant  in  thought,  and  in  the  literary  embodiment  of 
thought,  from  the  German  idealistic  philosophers,  through 
almost  all  the  poets  of  Germany  and  England,  to  great  prose- 
rhapsodists  as  different  as  Novalis  and  Lamennais,  or  Carlyle 
and  Emerson. 

On  the  less  noble  side,  the  "Renascence  of  Wonder  "  mani- 
fested itself  as  a  childish  interest  in  the  supernatural,  of  what- 
ever kind.  Some  loved  it  for  its  faery  beauty,  some  for  its 
mystic  symbolism ;  some,  as  Coleridge  and  later  Poe,  made 
of  it  a  psychological  allegory;  others  merely  revelled  or 
groveled  in  its  horrors  or  grotesqueness.  It  was  the  chief 
stock-in-trade  of  minor  writers  too  numerous  to  name,  and 
even  of  most  of  the  greater  writers  of  the  period  when  follow- 
ing the  conventions  of  their  age,  till,  as  some  one  has  suggested, 
Pope's  famous  line  seemed  to  have  been  revised  to  read 

The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  —  spooks. 

Even  if  this  supernaturalism  seems  to  most  of  us  to-day 
a  httle  cheap  and  tawdry  —  the  wonder-light  having  gone 
out  of  it,  or  of  our  eyes  —  we  should  not  forget  that  it  produced, 
among  other  things,  Goethe's  "Faust"  ;  and  that  in  "Faust" 
all  of  its  different  characteristics  are  embodied. 

Just  as  the  Romantic  movement  turned  back  to  the  past, 


216  THE  ROMANTIC  EMANCIPATION 

especially  to  the  Middle  Ages,  seeking  there  the  period  to 
which  it  could  most  easily  appeal  in  its  revolt  against  the  neo- 
classic  and  pseudo-classic  rule,  the  nearest  epoch  of  compara- 
tive freedom  and  irregularity,  spontaneity  and  naturalness, 
and  an  epoch  of  mystery,  less  known  even  than  the  older 
classical  epoch,  in  the  same  way  during  the  Romantic  period 
each  nation  of  Europe  turned  to  the  others,  to  find  that  free- 
dom and  newness,  that  strangeness  and  suggestiveness,  that 
escape  from  the  humdrum  commonplace  of  ever  present 
reality  or  convention  which  all  desired.  Exotism  is  almost 
as  much  a  characteristic  of  the  Romantic  movement  as  me- 
dievalism. Each  nation  found  in  foreign  lands  not  a  "  con- 
temporary posterity,"  but  a  contemporary  past.  The  men 
of  letters  sought  there  not  critics  but  models,  not  living  chil- 
dren of  their  spirit  but  adoptive  ancestors.  The  Romanti- 
cists, especially  in  France,  rather  felt  the  lack  of  ancestors; 
the  French  poets  took  Andre  Chenier,  who  was  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century  and  the  other  half  pure  Greek,  for  their 
adoptive  father,  and  another  thorough-going  Classicist,  Ron- 
sard,  for  the  founder  of  their  line.  But  they  sought  their 
maternal  ancestry,  so  to  speak,  in  Young,  Thomson,  Ossian, 
even  Richardson,  and  found  in  Byron  a  long-lost  elder  half- 
brother;  while  the  French  dramatists  adopted  Shakspere 
as  the  grandfather  of  a  "hterary  progeny"  that  he  would 
hardly  have  recognized.  Germany  had  Ukewse  adopted 
Shakspere,  Milton,  Richardson,  Macpherson,  and  the  rest  for 
literary  ancestors.  To  drop  the  metaphor,  we  may  say  that 
Germany  during  the  early  part  of  the  Romantic  movement 
drew  its  inspiration  from  England,  and  from  the  France  of 
Rousseau  and  Diderot,  far  more  than  from  the  German  Mid- 
dle Ages ;  that  England,  in  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century 
down  to  about  1795,  drew  largely  on  France  for  its  thought 
and  inspiration,  and  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century 
on  Germany  for  many  of  its  literary  impulses  and  for  all  that 
was  of  any  value  in  its  philosophical  thought.     France  in  the 


THE   ROMANTIC   EMANCIPATION  217 

eighteenth  century  let  its  strongest  political  thinking,  as  well 
as  its  newest  Uterary  impulses,  follow  England's,  and  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  while  drawing  some  inspiration  and 
suggestions  from  Germany,  let  its  literary  ideals  be  charac- 
terized by  nothing  less  than  rampant  Anglomania. 

Both  medievalism  (or,  as  I  have  suggested  we  should  say, 
more  broadly,  interest  in  the  past)  and  exotism  helped  to 
overthrow  the  rules,  and  to  make  standards  of  taste  relative 
where  they  had  been  absolute.  Not  only  the  conventions 
of  neo-classic  drama,  such  as  the  famous  unities  of  time,  place, 
and  action,  and  the  still  more  important  fourth  unity  of  tone, 
together  with  many  other  conventions,  such  as  the  limiting 
of  the  characters  to  a  few  noble  or  ignoble  types,  but  also  the 
whole  aristocratic  structure  of  Literature,  divided  into  classes 
or  genres  between  which  intermarriage  was  forbidden,  were 
all  overthrown  together.  Wordsworth's  quiet,  persistent, 
successful  battle  for  the  rights  of  the  humble  and  the  simple 
—  whether  words,  feelings,  characters,  or  literary  forms  — 
was  paralleled  in  France  by  Victor  Hugo's  spectacular  "put- 
ting a  red  Uberty-cap  on  the  old  Dictionary,"  as  he  called  it, 
and  setting  the  rabble  in  place  of  the  nobles,  the  valet  and 
bandit  in  place  of  the  courtier  and  king,  as  heroes  of  serious 
drama.  All  words,  all  feelings,  all  characters,  all  classes  of 
life,  all  aspects  of  nature,  all  ages  of  history,  all  types  of  lit- 
erary form,  received  equal  rights  as  citizens  in  the  new  Repub- 
hc  of  Letters.  And  so  Modern  Literature,  in  its  all-inclusive 
democracy,  was  made  possible. 

Perhaps  in  the  future  this  will  be  looked  back  on  as  the 
most  important  service  of  the  Romantic  movement  —  that 
it  cleared  the  way  for  the  Literature  that  was  to  come.  But 
as  we  look  back  on  it  to-day,  we  seem  to  see  that  it  produced, 
in  Germany,  the  greatest  epoch  of  the  nation's  Uterature; 
in  Italy,  truer  poets  than  had  been  known  since  Tasso's  time, 
or  perhaps  since  Petrarch's,  and  a  new  school  of  prose  romance ; 
in  France,  a  new  form  of  drama,  where  the  tragic  and  comic, 


218  THE  ROMANTIC  EMANCIPATION 

cleverly  juxtaposed  in  Hugo's  plays,  were  truly  fused  in 
Musset's,  whom  "  the  Muse  of  Comedy  had  kissed  upon  the 
lips,  and  the  Muse  of  Tragedy  upon  the  heart";  in  France 
it  also  produced  three  great  poets,  one  of  them  the  greatest 
master  of  verse-expression  that  modern  times  have  known, 
and  another  the  greatest  poet  of  passion  since  Catullus ;  two 
historians  perhaps  unmatched  for  lyric  power  in  narrative; 
and  two  novelists,  the  range  and  inclusiveness  of  whose  pic- 
turing of  life,  from  their  different  points  of  view,  make  sub- 
sequent attempts  at  so-called  realism  seem  narrow  and  petty. 
In  England,  finally,  it  produced  a  renaissance  of  poetry  that 
makes  this  period  comparable,  or  even  superior,  to  the  Eliza- 
bethan age  itself,  in  all  departments  except  the  most  important 
one,  poetic  drama;  a  revival,  or  rather  a  new  creation,  of 
the  romance,  culminating  in  Scott ;  and  a  new  school  of  prose, 
which  bears  the  same  relation  to  the  Spectator  as  Keats 's 
poetry  to  Pope's ;  and  incidentally,  it  gave  America  Cooper 
and  Longfellow,  Hawthorne  and  Poe. 

As  the  century  developed,  there  came  an  inevitable  reaction 
against  many  of  the  tendencies  of  Romanticism;  but  the 
greatest  poets  of  the  mid-century,  Tennyson,  Browning, 
Leconte  de  Lisle,  Carducci,  are  all  Romanticists,  grown  to 
maturity  with  the  growth  of  the  century  itself  —  though 
one  of  them,  Leconte  de  Lisle,  represents  also  the  classical 
side  of  the  reaction,  which  naturally  was  strongest  in  France. 
Preraphaelitism  in  England,  and  the  narrower  school  of  art 
for  art's  sake  in  France,  are  Romanticism  gone  to  seed ;  the 
very  seed  got  frost-bitten  in  the  age  of  science,  and  symbolism 
is  perhaps  the  stunted  winter  crop  that  grows  from  a  few  of 
the  scattered  kernels.  Meanwhile  the  roots  of  Romanticism 
survive,  deep  in  the  human  heart,  where  no  kind  of  frost  can 
reach  them,  and  may  send  forth  strong,  new  shoots  at  any 
moment. 


XI 


ITALIAN    LITERATURE    IN    THE    EIGHTEENTH 
CENTURY 

By  Carlo  L.  Speranza,  Professor  of  Italian 

Only  of  late  years,  scholars,  mostly  Italian,  have  made  the 
Settecento,  as  the  Italians  call  the  eighteenth  century,  an 
object  of  assiduous  study  as  to  its  literary  culture,  but  the 
general  pubhc  knows  little  or  nothing  about  it.  Hence  it  is 
ordinarily  assumed  that  the  eighteenth  century  is  a  continua- 
tion of  its  immediate  predecessor,  which  means  a  continua- 
tion of  a  period  of  decadence,  come  to  its  close  not  any  earUer 
than  the  invasion  of  Italy  by  the  French  army  towards  the 
end  of  the  century.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  Sette- 
cento was  throughout  a  period  of  gradual  recovery,  memo- 
rable in  Italian  history  for  great  intellectual  activity,  for  great 
scholars,  for  political  reforms,  and  for  the  rise,  in  its  second 
half,  of  modern  Italian  Literature. 

The  scientific  movement,  started  and  carried  on  for  years 
in  Italy  by  Galileo  Galilei,  was  never  allowed  to  stop.  After 
the  death  of  the  great  master,  his  immediate  disciples  and  then 
their  followers,  from  Torricelli  to  Galvani  and  to  Volta,  from 
Redi  to  Morgagni  and  to  Spallanzani,  from  Cassini  to  Oriani 
and  to  Piazzi,  continued  to  apply  Galilei's  experimental 
method  to  the  investigation  of  other  phenomena  of  nature 
and  of  the  human  body,  thereby  enriching  with  new  dis- 
coveries, or  otherwise  advancing,  physics,  anatomy,  physiology, 
zoology,  astronomy,  and  the  other  natural  sciences. 

219 


220  ITALIAN   LITERATURE 

Philosophy,  too,  which  religious  intolerance  and  the  des- 
potism of  princes  had  stifled  with  the  lives  of  Giordano  Bruno 
and  of  Tommaso  Campanella,  was  now  revived  by  the  solitary 
genius  of  Giambattista  Vico  (1668-1744),  who,  rising  to  high 
and  new  speculations  upon  the  ideal  life  of  mankind,  its  pro- 
gresses and  regresses,  created  the  "Scienza  nuova"  (1730), 
the  most  original  work  of  the  time  in  Italy,  or,  indeed,  in 
Europe.  And,  while  Vico  was  absorbed  in  the  contemplation 
of  a  remote  past  and  in  the  discovery  of  the  great  laws  of 
history,  the  jurist  Pietro  Giannone  (1676-1748)  wrote  with 
political  intent  his  "Storia  civile  del  reamedi  Napoli"  (1723), 
tracing  not  only  the  succession  of  events,  but  also,  and  more 
particularly,  the  changes  in  legislation,  customs,  and  public 
institutions  from  the  Roman  days  to  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  With  his  history  Giannone  preluded  the 
movement,  which  brought  to  him  persecution  and  imprison- 
ment, and  to  the  Church,  later  on,  subjection,  in  temporal 
concerns,  to  the  civil  power. 

At  the  same  time  with  Giannone,  Antonio  Muratori(1672- 
1750),  of  the  province  of  Modena,  devoted  his  prodigiously 
active  life  to  conscientious  and  critical  search  for  historical 
truth  in  nearly  every  branch  of  human  knowledge,  uniting 
in  a  well-organized  body  all  the  historical  sources  of  his  nation, 
and  revealing  of  this  the  whole  life  during  the  Middle  Ages, 
till  then  shrouded  in  mystery,  thereby  deserving  to  be  ac- 
claimed the  father  of  Italian  historiography. 

Contemporary  with  Muratori,  to  whom  he  suggested  the 
idea  of  his  monumental  work,  "Rerum  italicarum  scriptores," 
was  the  Venetian  Apostolo  Zeno  (1669-1759),  the  initiator 
of  the  reform  of  the  lyrical  drama,  and  a  very  meritorious 
scholar  and  bibliographer.  By  the  keenness  of  his  historical 
criticism,  Zeno,  with  his  ''Dissertazioni  Vossiane,"  shed  floods 
of  light  on  the  humanists  and  their  works;  with  his  ''Note" 
to  Fontanini's  "Eloquenza  italiana"  corrected  numberless 
errors,    and    with    his   scholarly    "  Giornale   dei   letterati" 


ITALIAN    LITERATURE  221 

endowed  Italy  with  a  periodical  of  positive  science  of  great 
worth  and  influence. 

Literary  history  had  also  its  cultivators  in  Gian  Mario 
Crescimbeni  (1663-1728)  and  Saverio  Quadrio  (1695-1756), 
who  were  both  greatly  distanced  by  Girolamo  Tiraboschi 
(1707-1773)  of  Bergamo.  Tiraboschi's  great  "Storia  della 
letteratura  italiana,"  embracing  the  whole  Itahan  culture 
since  Etruscan  times,  is  still  on  many  points  to  be  confidently 
and  advantageously  consulted  by  the  student. 

Besides  Tiraboschi,  I  should  mention,  at  least,  Giovan 
Maria  Mazzuchelli  (1707-1765)  for  his  collection  of  the  biogra- 
phies and  bibliographies  of  all  the  Italian  authors  of  every 
century,  which  death  compelled  him  to  leave  very  far  from 
completion.  Scores  of  other  erudites  and  critics  did  for  each 
one  of  many  ItaHan  cities  or  provinces  what  Mazzuchelli 
had  designed  to  do  for  the  whole  of  Italy. 

In  other  branches  of  history,  Scipione  Maffei  (1675-1755), 
the  sovereign  archeologist,  and  Luigi  Lanzi  (1731-1811), 
the  Etruscan  scholar,  gained  other  claims  to  honor,  the  former 
by  his  "Storia  diplomatica"  and  his  "Verona  illustrata," 
the  latter  by  his  "Storia  pittorica  d'  Itaha,"  in  which  he  sub- 
stituted the  division  by  schools  of  painting  for  the  biographical 
method  of  Vasari  and  the  annalistic  one  of  Baldinucci. 

Indeed,  the  great  advance  in  all  departments  of  historical 
study,  so  fruitful  of  lasting  benefits  to  science,  made  the 
eighteenth  century  in  respect  to  the  modern  age,  what  the 
fifteenth  had  been  in  regard  to  the  Italian  Renaissance.  Both 
the  eighteenth  and  the  fifteenth  were  centuries  of  erudition 
and  criticism,  only  the  fifteenth  was  more  exclusive  in  its 
Classicism,  and  the  eighteenth  more  comprehensive  in  the 
universality  of  its  culture,  and  in  its  criticism  broader,  more 
positive,  and  more  skilful. 

It  will  not  be  amiss  at  this  point  to  notice  that  the  intel- 
lectual movement  which  I  have  tried  briefly  to  delineate, 
began  to  gain  impetus  soon  after  the  elimination  in  1714 


222  ITALIAN   LITERATURE 

from  Italy  of  the  execrable  Spanish  domination,  and  that  it 
greatly  expanded  after  1748,  when  the  treaty  of  Aix-la- 
Chapelle  had  at  last  put  an  end  to  the  incessant  wars  that  had 
ravaged  the  country,  and  secured  for  it  the  blessings  of  peace 
for  nearly  fifty  years. 

Concerning  Literature  in  general,  aside  from  history,  and 
more  particularly  concerning  poetry,  the  Settecento  opened  and 
remained  long  under  the  sway  of  the  Academy  of  Arcadia,  which 
was  established  in  Rome  ten  years  before  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  That  Academy,  which  soon  spread  offshoots 
all  over  Italy,  by  inculcating  the  maxim  that  noble  poetry 
does  not  consist  in  loftiness  of  concepts,  but  in  excellence  of 
imitation,  made  of  art  a  mere  mechanical  play.  Moreover, 
by  catering  to  petty  ambitions  and  vanities,  it  fostered  the 
evil  plant  of  dilettantism.  Consequently,  there  sprang  up 
everywhere  in  the  coimtry  swarms  of  poetasters  ever  ready 
to  effuse  their  amorous  or  religious  languors,  or  their  enthu- 
siasms, over  the  most  futile  occurrences,  such  as  an  invitation 
to  dinner,  the  death  of  a  cat,  and  the  like;  and  as  the  drift 
ran  in  Italy,  as  it  did  in  France  and  in  Germany,  toward 
pastoral  subjects,  the  outcome  was  a  deluge  of  madrigals, 
canzonette,  and  sonnets,  empty  of  thought  and  of  sentiment, 
nerveless,  oversweet,  and,  in  their  affectation  of  simplicity, 
naturalness,  and  innocence  of  shepherds'  feelings  and  man- 
ners which  had  no  existence  in  life,  essentially  false. 

However,  Arcadia  obtained  the  object  for  which  it  was 
founded,  by  successfully  leading  the  reaction  against  the 
crazy  extravagances  and  the  bombast  of  the  Seicento;  in 
the  course  of  the  years  it  changed  its  ways  for  the  better, 
showing  more  measure  and  correctness  in  concepts;  it  intro- 
duced fine  new  metres;  through  Paolo  Rolli  (1687-1765)  it 
produced  canzonette  of  an  enchanting  grace;  through  Inno- 
cenzo  Frugoni's  sonorous  verse  its  songs  took  up  some  sem- 
blance of  force,  and,  finally,  Arcadia  could  boast  of  having 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE  223 

nourished  with  its  own  milk  a  real  poet,  Pietro  Metastasio 
(1698-1782). 

Educated  by  his  patron,  the  illustrious  jurist  Giavincenzo 
Gravina,  in  the  austerest  Classicism,  Metastasio,  after  his 
benefactor's  death,  went  to  Naples,  where  he  learned  music 
from  the  composer  Porpora,  and  in  1724,  with  the  perform- 
ance of  his  first  lyrical  drama,  "Didone  abbandonata,"  ob- 
tained an  immense  success.  New  triumphs  followed  through 
his  "Siroe,"  "Catone,"  "Semiramide,"  and  other  dramas, 
which  on  the  wing  of  song  carried  his  name  beyond  the  Alps, 
and  in  1730  secured  for  him  the  position,  till  then  held  by 
Apostolo  Zeno,  of  imperial  court  poet  at  Vienna.  From 
Vienna  Metastasio  actually  swayed  the  gentle  hearts  of  all  the 
nations,  so  fascinating  were  his  dramas  in  their  perfect  corre- 
spondence to  the  artistic  ideal  of  his  days,  in  the  soft  harmony 
of  their  verse,  and  the  gentleness  of  their  sentiments.  Indeed, 
Metastasio's  lyrical  dramas  were,  and  can  still  be,  enjoyed  in 
themselves  without  the  music  to  which  they  were  set. 

Besides  the  dramatic,  the  comic  opera  then  flourished,  to 
which  composers  like  Cimarosa  and  Paisiello  gave  the  musical 
notes,  and  which  culminated  in  Gahani  and  Lorenzi's  "Socrate 
imaginario"  (1775),  one  of  the  most  genial  artistic  produc- 
tions of  dramatic  hterature  in  Italy.  Soon,  however,  the 
literary  text  lost  its  importance,  and  the  lyrical  drama  de- 
cayed as  if  overpowered  by  the  music,  into  which  the  words, 
now  empty  of  meaning,  evaporated. 

A  kind  of  poetry  largely  cultivated  during  the  first  decades 
of  the  century  was  the  burlesque,  a  fatuous  kind,  to  be  sure, 
but  acceptable  to  the  society  of  that  time,  frivolous,  thought- 
less, weak,  and,  in  spite  of  its  pseudo-heroic  and  sentimental 
attitudes,  not  averse  to  hearty  laughter.  It  was  then  that 
Niccolo  Forteguerri  (1634-1735)  of  Pistoia,  entirely  outside 
of  Arcadian  influence,  continuing  Bemi's  classical  tradition, 
with  his  "  Ricciardetto,"  created  the  mock-heroic  poem,  amidst 
the  merriment  of  which  the  Italian  chivalric  epic  died. 


224  ITALIAN   LITERATURE 

The  "  Ricciardetto"  was  published  posthumously  in  1738, 
and  not  many  years  afterwards,  the  dogmatic  rationahsm 
of  Descartes  found  its  way  to  Italy,  where  it  fed  and  hastened 
the  course  of  the  national  thought.  Later  on,  after  the 
middle  of  the  century,  there  became  manifest  in  Italy  a  deep 
and  general  interest  in  the  philosophical  and  reforming  move- 
ment which  from  France  irradiated  all  over  Europe.  Then 
it  was  that  such  serious  and  vigorous,  if  not  always  original, 
Italian  thinkers,  economists,  jurists,  philosophers,  as  Antonio 
Genovesi,  Ferdinando  Galiani,  Gaetano  Filangeri,  Mario 
Pagano,  all  Neapolitans,  Niccolo  Spedalieri,  a  Sicihan,  Pietro 
Verri,  and  Cesare  Beccaria,  both  of  Milan,  formed  a  worthy 
counterpart  of  the  French  Encyclopedists.  They  directed 
their  studies  to  the  phenomena  of  the  moral  and  of  the  eco- 
nomical world,  as  well  as  to  the  forms  of  law  for  the  practical 
purpose  of  promoting  the  welfare  and  improving  the  govern- 
ment of  the  people.  And  since,  by  the  already  mentioned 
treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  the  many  states  into  which  Italy 
was  formerly  divided  were  reduced  to  ten,  and,  except  for 
Lombardy  (still  remaining  in  the  possession  of  Austria)  these 
had  been  restored  to  independence,  those  new  doctrines 
spread  more  easily,  and  helped  the  formation  of  an  enlightened 
public  opinion.  Led  by  this,  and  still  more  by  their  own 
interest,  the  Italian  rulers  accepted  those  doctrines,  and,  with 
the  advice  and  aid  of  liberal  and  competent  ministers,  realized 
them  in  penal  and  administrative  laws,  abolishing  privileges 
and  immunities,  freeing  commerce  and  industry  from  absurd 
legal  hindrances,  encouraging  agriculture,  inaugurating,  in 
short,  a  new  era  of  progress  in  Italian  history. 

Of  this  progress  the  best  evidence  was  furnished  by  the 
great  innovation  which  almost  at  once  took  place  in  Italian 
Literature,  and  which  had  beneficent  effects  upon  society. 
The  signs  of  the  innovation  became  visible  in  literary  criti- 
cism, in  the  broadening  of  the  culture,  in  the  great  fondness 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE  225 

for  music  and  disregard  for  the  words,  the  importance  of  which 
was  preferably  appreciated  in  writings  of  philosophical  char- 
acter and  of  practical  purpose;  and,  above  all,  in  a  desire  to 
get  into  touch  with  the  thoughts  and  sentiments  expressed 
in  the  literatures  of  other  nations,  whose  influence  upon  the 
Literature  of  Italy  had  begun  to  make  itself  felt  here  and 
there  since  the  beginning  of  the  Settecento,  or  even  somewhat 
earlier. 

This  influence  became  more  intense  and  universal  with 
the  advancing  of  the  century,  and,  favored  by  the  prevailing 
of  a  cosmopolitan  spirit,  by  the  travels,  and  the  intercourse 
of  many  Italian  diplomats,  men  of  letters,  and  adventurers 
with  the  peoples  of  other  countries,  became,  after  the  peace 
of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  one  of  the  characteristics  of  the  national 
culture.  An  immense  number  of  works,  French,  English, 
Spanish,  in  prose  or  in  poetry,  were  translated  into  Italian 
by  illustrious,  mediocre,  and  obscure  men  of  letters;  a  new 
ecclecticism  accustomed  the  minds  of  readers  to  like  and  to 
appreciate  the  most  widely  different  literary  products,  which 
were  eagerly  studied,  imitated,  or  assimilated. 

Thus  Italy,  who  in  the  time  of  her  Renaissance  had  been  the 
teacher  of  Literature  to  the  other  nations,  little  by  little  adapted 
herself  to  become  in  her  turn  their  disciple,  happy  whenever 
some  of  her  men,  as  Vico,  Beccaria,  Galiani,  Maffei,  and  others, 
enabled  her  by  their  productions  to  make  some  new  returns  for 
what  she  was  receiving.  At  all  events,  from  the  communion 
with  other  European  literatures,  new  blood  was  tranfused  into 
the  enfeebled  frame  of  Italian  Literature,  that  is,  ideas,  senti- 
ments, and  tendencies. 

The  most  potent  instrument  of  renovation  was  literary 
criticism;  which,  formerly  used  with  his  usual  fehcitous  intui- 
tions by  Vico,  by  the  jurist  Gravina,  and  by  Muratori,  wasnow 
vigorously  taken  up  by  a  number  of  writers  in  order  to  combat 
imitation  of  the  classic  Italian  Literature,  and  to  promote  in- 
novation in  form  as  well  as  in  substance  both  in  prose  and  in 

Q 


226  ITALIAN   LITERATURE 

poetry.  And,  in  order  to  spread  more  widely  their  ideas,  the 
critics  gave  preference  to  agile  and  current  forms,  similar  to 
those  of  the  periodicals  of  our  own  day,  adopting,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  a  style  and  a  language  more  closely  resem- 
bling the  French,  then  familiar  to  everybody  in  Italy,  than  the 
Italian  commonly  used  by  the  literati.  Indeed,  one  of  the 
many  periodicals,  "II  Caffe  "  of  Pietro  Verri,  openly  and  proudly 
proclaimed  that  its  writers  would  never  allow  themselves  to  be 
hampered  by  rules  of  Italian  granmiar,  or  by  care  to  preserve 
the  purity  of  the  national  language. 

The  critics  were  often  at  variance  and  quarreled  with  each 
other,  as  the  philosophers  did ;  but  they  were  all  actuated  by 
one  spirit,  one  purpose,  namely,  emancipation  from  rules  and 
from  authority  save  that  of  reason  and  of  nature.  First  to 
start  criticism  upon  the  new  road  was,  probably,  the  Venetian 
Francesco  Algarotti  (1712-1764)  with  some  of  his  "Lettere" 
and  of  his  "  Saggi,"  though  he  is  best  known  through  his  "  New- 
tonianismo  per  le  dame,"  which  was  soon  translated  into 
the  principal  European  languages.  A  much  traveled  man  of 
varied  learning,  a  miscellaneous  writer, -a  friend  of  Voltaire 
and  of  Frederick  the  Great  of  Prussia,  who  made  him  a  count, 
Algarotti  felicitously  typified  in  himself  the  more  characteris- 
tic forms  of  the  Italian  thought  of  the  Settecento. 

In  his  critical  work  he  was  followed  by  the  Mantuan  Jesuit, 
Saverio  Bettinelli  (1718-1808),  noted  for  his  ''Storia  del  Ri- 
sorgimento  d'ltalia  dopo  il  mille,"  by  far  the  best  of  his  works, 
written  under  the  influence  of  his  greatly  admired  friend 
Voltaire.  As  a  critic  Bettinelli  did  not  entirely  lack  construc- 
tive ideas,  but,  except  in  political  matters,  seemed  to  be  driven 
by  a  mania  to  demolish  everjrthing.  Thus,  in  his  "Lettere 
virgiHane,"  and  next  in  his  "Lettere  inglesi,"  under  color  of 
combating  blind  worship  of  Italian  classics,  he  repudiated  the 
greater  part  of  the  past  and  present  poetry  of  the  nation,  begin- 
ning with  Dante's  "Commedia,"  of  which  he  disapproved 
everything  save  a  few  fragments.     The  confuters  of  Betti- 


ITALIAN  LITERATURE  227 

nelli's  invective  were  many,  but  Gaspare  Gozzi  (1713-1786) 
of  Venice  excelled  them  all  with  his  brilliant ' '  Dif  esa  di  Dante ' ' ; 
and,  as  Gozzi,  mainly  through  his  "  Osservatore  " — the  first  peri- 
odical of  manners  in  Italy,  in  form  and  moral  purpose  similar 
to  Addison's  Spectator  —  had  won  the  reputation  of  a  man  of 
good  taste,  of  liberal  ideas,  of  impartial  judgment,  and  as  an 
excellent  prose- writer,  his  ''Dif esa"  carried  the  more  weight 
and  contributed  considerably  to  the  great  revival,  already  under 
way,  of  the  till  then  long  neglected  study  of  Dante;  another 
sure  indication  this  that  the  national  culture  and  character 
were  on  the  rise. 

Of  a  temperament  wholly  different  from  Gozzi's  was  the 
Piedmontese  Giuseppe  Baretti ;  restless,  impetuous,  presump- 
tuous, an  ardent  admirer  of  free  England,  where  he  resided 
between  1751  and  1760,  and  where,  in  close  friendship  with 
Johnson  and  Reynolds,  he  spent  the  last  twenty  years  or  so  of 
his  life.  In  1763  Baretti  began  in  Venice  the  publication  of 
his  "Frusta  letteraria,"  orliterary  whip,  which  he  wielded  mer- 
cilessly right  and  left,  hitting  Petrarchists,  Arcadians,  and  all 
sorts  of  empty  writers,  and  making  it  a  potent  instrument  of 
sound  innovation  in  literary  criticism  and  literature  in  general, 
although  not  infrequently  letting  it  fall  in  the  wrong  direction. 
In  practice  Baretti  adhered  to  his  theories,  writing  his  most  en- 
tertaining familiar  letters  from  Portugal,  Spain,  and  France, 
as  well  as  his  "  Frusta,"  in  a  prose  as  solid  and  robust  as  his 
convictions,  and  of  a  clearness  and  pictorial  efficacy  worthy 
of  serving  as  a  model. 

Last  among  the  more  conspicuous  critics  of  the  period  came 
the  Paduan  Melchiorre  Cesarotti  (1730-1808)  with  his  "  Saggio 
sulla  filosofia  delle  lingue"  (1785).  In  this  carefully  thought- 
out  work,  Cesarotti,  following  the  inspiration  of  French  thinkers 
and  philologists,  turned  his  fine  speculations  on  the  nature  of 
human  speech  against  the  despotism  of  the  "Accademia 
della  Crusca,"  which  presumed  to  restrict  the  whole  Italian 
language  within  the  narrow  compass  of  its  own  vocabulary, 


228  ITALIAN   LITERATURE 

registering,  almost  exclusively,  the  language  used  by  some  of  the 
Tuscan  writers  of  the  Trecento.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  on 
the  whole  Cesarotti  with  his  "Saggio"  helped  to  emancipate 
the  language  from  the  caprices  of  fashion,  and  of  incompetent 
authority,  and  to  substitute  for  them  the  legitimate  guidance 
of  reason  and  of  good  taste. 

A  few  years  before  Cesarotti  had  published  his  Italian  transla- 
tion, in  harmonious  blank  eleven-syllable  hues,  interspersed 
with  lyrical  strophes,  of  James  Macpherson's  so-called  Ossianic 
poems,  and  the  public  had  received  it  with  enthusiasm.  Such 
an  enthusiasm  was  quite  natural;  for  the  Itahans,  now  im- 
bued with  the  emancipating  and  humanitarian  ideas  of  the 
new  philosophy,  and  more  or  less  acquainted  with  foreign  liter- 
atures, had  grown  tired  of  the  idyls  and  pastorals  of  Arcadia, 
and  of  the  rhetorical  composure  and  monotonous  hght  of  the 
literary  art  of  the  classic  type.  They  had  grown  so  eager  for 
new  forms  and  new  subjects,  that  they  now  took  delight  even 
in  the  extravagant  and  absurd  romances  and  plays  of  Pietro 
Chiari  (1711-1785) ;  they  took  dehght  in  the  nursery-tales  and 
in  the  fairy-tales  which  Carlo  Gozzi,  Gaspare's  brother,  ar- 
ranged for  the  actors  of  the  extemporaneous  comedy  of  masks 
to  develop  and  enact.  No  wonder,  then,  if  the  Italians  so 
eagerly  welcomed  the  heroic  deeds,  the  misfortunes  and  loves 
narrated,  and  the  frightful  storms  described,  in  the  Ossianic 
poems. 

When  the  first  part  of  Cesarotti's  translation  of  Ossian  was 
pubhshed,  in  1763,  Carlo  Goldoni  (1707-1793)  of  Venice  had 
already  ushered  in  the  new  Italian  Literature;  new,  for  he  had 
at  last  led  it  back  to  nature  and  real  life,  after  it  had  been  so 
long  divorced  from  them. 

At  first,  to  please  the  taste  of  the  public,  or  to  obey  the 
commands  of  the  impresarios,  Goldoni  produced  lyrical  dramas, 
historical  dramas,  tragedies,  that  is  to  say,  things  for  which  his 
genius  was  not  fitted.     However,  he  never  abandoned  his  long- 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE  229 

cherished  ideal  of  superseding  the  now  decrepit  extemporane- 
ous comedy  of  masks,  and  that  of  intrigue,  which  he  thought 
could  only  be  achieved  by  the  creation  of  good  plays  based 
on  character  and  life. 

So,  as  soon  as  an  opportunity  offered  itself,  he  seized  it,  and 
set  about  his  reform.  At  the  beginning  he  proceeded  cautiously 
and  gradually,  changing  this  or  that  feature  of  the  improvised 
comedy,  but  when  his  first  entirely  written  out  play,  and  then 
the  second  and  the  next,  were  applauded  by  the  audiences, 
feehng  sure  of  his  ground,  he  poured  out  comedy  after  comedy, 
some  twenty  in  verse,  the  rest,  perhaps  eighty  or  more,  in 
prose,  either  in  the  Venetian  dialect  or  in  the  national  lan- 
guage. These  plays  are  of  various  degrees  of  merit,  but  all  to- 
gether actually  reproduce  Italian  life  as  it  had  then  narrowed 
itself  down  in  Venice.  They  are  rich  in  comical  situations, 
naturally  springing  from  everyday  occurrences,  and  admi- 
rably lending  themselves  to  the  natural  development  of  the 
characters.  These  are  invariably  living  men  and  women, 
ordinarily  simple,  rather  common  and  superficial,  consistent 
with  the  author's  fundamental  conception  of  his  reform,  and 
with  the  constitution  of  his  mind,  which,  unlike  Moliere's, 
seemed  to  shrink  from  deep  thinkuig  or  too  keen  analyzing  of 
sentiments.  Certainly  Goldoni's  plays  leave  something  to 
be  desired  in  point  of  language  and  literary  style,  which  are 
careless,  but  in  clearness  of  conception,  inexhaustible  wealth, 
and  variety  of  inventions,  in  the  gay  grace  and  happy  bril- 
liancy of  the  dialogue,  in  absolute  faithfulness  to  nature,  and 
in  the  comicity  and  humanity  of  the  characters,  are  yet  un- 
matched. No  wonder,  then,  if  in  Germany  Goldoni's  comedies 
enjoyed  great  popularity,  if  in  France  they  were  imitated  by 
Diderot  and  by  Voltaire,  and  if  in  our  own  day  many  of  them 
delight  Italian  audiences,  for,  while  true  to  the  manners  of  a 
past  age,  they  still  retain  all  their  original  freshness. 

In  poetry  the  great  innovator  was  a  Lombard  priest, 
Giuseppe  Parini  (1729-1799).     With  him  truth,  justice,  hu- 


230  ITALIAN   LITERATURE 

manity  were  not  an  idle  ideal,  as  was  the  case  with  many  of  his 
contemporaries,  but  a  religion.  Actuated  by  this,  Parini  trained 
his  natural  artistic  powers  in  the  study  of  the  ancient  classics, 
especially  of  Vergil,  and  used  them  in  his  lyrics  and  his  satire 
to  make  poetry  resume  her  mission  of  civil  and  moral  education, 
and  at  the  same  time  gaining  for  himself  a  place  among  the 
great  poets. 

His  odes  are  the  poetry  of  the  humanitarian  sentiments  of 
his  time.  As  to  form,  though  preserving  the  meters  of  what 
the  Italians  call  melic  poetry,  for  rapidity  of  movements  and  of 
touches,  for  sweet  and  temperate  melody,  lucidity  and  efficacy 
of  expression,  they  are,  with  very  few  exceptions,  works  of 
singular  beauty 

Of  his  satire,  the  "Giomo,"  the  first  two  parts,  the 
"Mattino"  and  the  "  Mezzogiorno  "  came  to  light  in  1763  and 
1765,  the  two  others,  "  Vespro"  and  "Notte,"  only  after  the 
poet's  death  and  unfinished. 

The  poem  is  a  vast  picture  of  the  whole  degenerate  con- 
temporary society,  such  as  no  other  satirical  literature,  Italian 
or  foreign,  had  ever  till  then  produced.  In  it  Parini  gave  the 
satire  forms  and  movements  entirely  new,  representing  in  a 
truly  masterful  way  the  manifold  action  of  that  society  in  its 
continuous  development,  and  creating  what  has  aptly  been 
called  the  "epic  of  satire." 

Of  the  lyrical,  didactic,  or  satirical  poets  of  Parini's  time  it 
may  suffice  to  say  that  in  endeavoring  to  imitate  classical 
examples,  they  more  or  less  contributed  to  the  rejuvenating  of 
poetical  forms  and  to  infusing  into  them  new  life  and  vigor. 
Of  such  poets  I  mil  only  mention  Giovanni  Fantoni  (1755- 
1807)  and  Aurelio  Bertola  (1753-1798).  The  former,  because 
by  his  rhymes  he  announced  the  death  of  Arcadia  and  the 
beginning  of  a  new  era ;  the  latter,  because  in  his  "  Poesie  cam- 
pestri  e  marittime"  he  wedded  the  Spirit  of  Gessner's  German 
idyls  with  the  tradition  of  the  classic  bucolic  poets;  he  trans- 
lated into  Italian  Young's  "Night  Thoughts,"  and  was  the  first 
to  make  the  Italians  acquainted  with  German  Literature. 


ITALIAN   LITERATURE  231 

Tragedy,  owing  to  the  excellence  it  had  achieved  in  France 
with  Corneille,  Racine,  and  their  followers,  had,  in  the  period 
I  have  been  speaking  of,  become  the  fashion  in  Italy.  But  time 
has  long  buried  in  oblivion  the  innumerable  tragic  compositions 
then  produced;  it  has  only  spared  the  "Merope"  of  Maffei, 
the  "  Giovanni  Giscala  "  of  Alfonso  Varano,  and  perhaps  one  or 
two  more.  Real  tragedy  rose  in  Italy  only  when  the  poet 
came,  who  within  the  weary  classic  frame  then  in  vogue,  could 
rouse  the  throb  of  life  by  the  heat  of  his  own  passion. 

That  poet  came  at  last,  and  was  the  Piedmontese  nobleman 
Vittorio  Alfieri  (1749-1803) :  a  resolute  heart,  good,  generous, 
rebellious  to  force,  pliant  to  kindness,  impetuous,  of  a  strong, 
imperious  will,  in  short,  a  very  complex  character,  swayed  by 
two  passions,  a  profound  abhorrence  of  tyranny,  and  an  ardent 
love  of  country  and  of  liberty.  The  conflict  between  these 
two  passions  he  made  the  center  round  which  runs  the  rapid 
action  of  all  his  tragedies,  except  his  "Mirra"  and  "Saul," 
the  latter  of  which  is  not  only  Alfieri 's  masterpiece,  but  also 
one  of  the  most  notable  dramatic  conceptions  in  the  modern 
theater. 

All  the  faults,  as  also  all  the  excellences,  of  Alfieri's  tragic 
productions  are  a  necessary  outcome  of  his  conception  of  trag- 
edy, constantly  intended  by  him  to  make  his  fellow-country- 
men "free,  strong,  and  generous." 

It  has  been  said  that  the  Alfierian  tragedy  is  the  French 
tragedy  stripped  of  its  flesh.  This  is  true  in  one  respect,  that 
of  form.  For  Alfieri,  seeing  that  the  classic  form  of  the 
French  tragedy  was  universal,  adopted  it  without  discussion 
as  legitimate  and  regular.  But  into  it  he  cast  his  own  mighty 
individuality,  wholly  modern,  and  thereby  created  poetry, 
created  the  national  conscience,  and  pre-announced  the  Italian 
revolution  of  the  next  century. 

A  new  Literature  that  at  its  very  beginning  can  boast  of 
three  such  names  as  Goldoni,  Parini,  and  Alfieri,  gives  promise 
of  becoming  once  more  in  time  a  factor  in  European  culture. 


XII 

SPANISH    LITERATURE 

By  Henry  Alfred  Todd,  Professor  of  Romance 
Philology 

Like  more  than  one  of  those  who  have  preceded  me  in  this 
series  of  lectures,  I  stand  abashed  at  the  unwonted  difficulty 
of  presenting  within  a  single  hour  anything  like  an  adequate 
appreciation  of  the  spirit  of  one  of  the  world's  great  literatures. 
Nothing  but  a  consciousness  that  listeners  and  speaker 
must  be  alike  imbued  with  a  sense  of  the  limitations  of  such 
an  undertaking  could  give  requisite  courage  for  the  attempt. 
Yet  it  is  fitting  to  reflect  that,  apart  from  the  Literature 
of  our  mother  English  speech,  there  is  no  Literature  of  modern 
times  that  so  richly  deserves  sympathetic  and  illuminating 
consideration  as  does  the  Literature  of  Spain,  in  a  course 
such  as  this,  given  at  the  metropolitan  gateway  of  two  new 
continents,  both  of  which  have  been  so  largely  occupied  and 
developed  by  populations  of  Spanish  race  and  traditions 
and  of  Hispanic  speech,  in  a  country  whose  own  Literature 
has  been  enriched  by  the  monumental  works  of  an  Irving,  a 
Ticknor,  and  a  Prescott  in  the  past,  and  in  a  city  stirred  in 
the  present  by  the  vitalizing  activities  of  so  broadly  conceived 
an  institution  as  the  Hispanic  Society  of  America. 

At  the  outset  of  this  study,  let  us  remind  ourselves  briefly 
of  the  historic  background  of  the  subject  with  which  we  have 
to  deal.  Most  interestingly  and  curiously  situated  at  the 
extremity  of  its  own  continent,  close  to  the  desert-bounded 
strip  of  a  strangely  alien  neighbor  continent,  and  at  the  limits 

233 


234  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

of  the  great  intercontinental  sea,  about  which  have  fluctuated 
a  long  succession  of  civihzations,  the  territory  of  the  Hispanic 
Peninsula  contains  stored  up  within  itself  relics  of  successive 
strata  of  races,  incursions,  migrations,  and  traditions.  It  will 
be  sufficient  for  our  purpose  merely  to  mention  the  names  of 
the  earliest  races,  the  problems  of  whose  history  on  Spanish 
soil  are  no  less  real  than  they  are  obscure  —  Iberians,  Basques, 
and  Celts.  Even  for  the  Phoenicians,  the  date  of  their  ar- 
rival and  the  precise  points  of  their  establishment  in  the 
Peninsula  are  unknown,  but  we  reach  the  more  accurate  data 
of  history  with  the  incursions  of  their  colonial  children,  the 
Carthaginians,  who,  after  the  First  Punic  War,  had  demon- 
strated to  them  the  importance  of  the  more  complete  posses- 
sion of  Spain,  accomplished  under  Hamilcar,  the  father  of 
Hannibal,  virtually  the  entire  conquest  and  occupation  of 
the  country.  It  was  the  Second  Punic  War  that  brought  the 
Roman  conquest  of  Spain,  under  which  we  find  standing  forth 
individual  exemplars  of  that  high-minded  force  and  dignity 
of  bearing  that  has  ever  since  been  significant  of  the  Spanish 
character.  It  is  said  that  the  first  foreigner  who  ever  rose 
to  the  Roman  consulship,  as  well  as  the  first  to  gain  the  honors 
of  a  public  triumph,  was  Balbus,  from  Cadiz;  while  Trajan, 
from  Seville,  was  the  first  foreigner  to  sit  on  the  throne  of  the 
Roman  world.  Of  particular  interest  to  us  is  it  to  note  that 
from  an  early  period  Latin  writers  and  orators  begin  to  be 
produced  in  Spain.  It  was  Portius  Latro,  of  Cordova,  who 
was  the  first  to  open  in  Rome  a  school  for  rhetoric,  at  which 
he  enjoyed  the  patronage  of  no  less  distinguished  disciples 
than  Octavius  Csesar,  Maecenas,  and  Ovid.  The  two 
Senecas,  father  and  son,  were  both  natives  of  Cordova, 
Lucan,  author  of  the  "  Pharsalia,"  was  a  Spaniard,  and  so  were 
Quintilian  the  rhetorician,  Florus  the  historian.  Martial  the 
epigrammatist.  Columella  the  writer  on  agriculture. 

With  these  indications  of  the  prevalence  of  Latin  speech 
and  civilization  in  Spain,  we  can  well  understand  the  pre- 


SPANISH  LITERATURE  235 

paredness  of  the  country  for  the  gradual  introduction  of  the 
Christian  rehgion  through  its  accredited  medium  of  instruc- 
tion and  ritual,  the  Latin  tongue.  Whatever  may  be  the  true 
account  and  date  of  the  introduction  of  Christianity,  it 
seems  established  that  by  the  year  300  the  age  of  persecution 
was  passed,  and  Christian  churches  were  openly  supported. 
Next  follows  the  long  story  of  the  invasions  and  migrations 
of  the  Northern  barbarians,  Franks,  Vandals,  Alans,  who 
were  driven  forward  by  the  oncoming  Tartars  from  Upper 
Asia.  Later  follow  the  Goths,  until  by  the  end  of  the  fifth 
century  the  Visigothic  dynasty  was  established  and  acknowl- 
edged throughout  the  greater  part  of  Spain.  The  Visigoths, 
it  is  important  to  note,  had  been  already  converted  to  the 
Christian  faith  by  the  venerated  Bishop  Ulfilas,  so  that  this 
invasion  served  only  to  confirm  the  hold  of  Christianity  on 
the  people  of  Spain,  while  at  the  same  time  bringing  into 
the  Spanish  language  the  vigorous  admixture  of  Germanic 
elements  which  have  ever  since  continued  to  characterize 
it. 

But  the  tale  of  endless  incursions  is  not  yet  told.  Still 
another  momentous  invasion  was  to  burst  all  unforeseen  upon 
Spain,  threatening  to  carry  before  it,  not  indeed  cultivation 
and  refinement,  which  could  scarcely  have  existed  in  such  trou- 
blous times,  but  the  Christian  institutions  that  had  been  so  long 
and  so  laboriously  built  up  —  the  tremendous  inpouring  of 
Arab  hordes,  who  came  bringing  with  them  into  the  doomed 
Peninsula  all  the  weird  picturesqueness,  the  patriotic  zeal, 
and  the  religious  intensity  that  had  been  so  rapidly  gathering 
momentum.  Indeed,  within  less  than  a  century's  time  the 
trembling  balance  of  Mohammed's  fate  had  turned  in  favor  of 
his  cause  in  nearly  all  of  Western  Asia  and  Northern  Africa. 
So  sweeping  a  victory  as  that  which  attended  the  descent 
of  the  Moors  near  Gibraltar  in  711,  and  which  had  in  three 
years'  time  spread  over  all  of  Spain  excepting  the  mountain 
fastnesses  of  the  Northwest,  is  scarcely  recorded  in  history; 


236  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

and  when  we  reflect  that  for  four  centuries  the  dommation 
of  fShe  Moors  contmued  unabated,  and  for  three  centuries 
longer  struggled  and  continued  to  linger  on  Spanish  soil,  we 
can  well  understand  that  we  are  in  presence  of  a  factor  in  the 
social  and  intellectual  development  of  the  Spanish  people  that 
counts  strongly  in  all  their  early  history.  It  was  Theophile 
Gautier,  I  believe,  who  remarked  that  Africa  begins  at  the 
Pyrenees. 

Precisely  in  the  midst  of  this  crucial  period  of  the 
great  conflict  between  the  Christians  and  the  Moors  in  Spain 
there  emerges  the  earliest  and  most  majestic  literary  monu- 
ment of  the  heroic  era  of  her  history  —  a  poem  of  matchless 
simplicity  and  dignity,  the  " Poem  of  the  Cid "  —  "El  poema 
del  Cid."  Though  preserved  but  rudely  and  imperfectly  in  a 
single  manuscript  dating  long  subsequent  to  the  original  com- 
position of  the  work,  and  constituting  to  this  day,  as  far  as 
the  problems  connected  with  the  technique  of  its  composition 
are  concerned,  the  despair  of  the  most  competent  scholars, 
this  heroic  composition  of  something  like  four  thousand  lines 
may  well  serve  for  all  centuries  to  come  to  stand  as  a  noble 
torso  of  the  earliest  surviving  literary  expression  of  the  Spanish 
spirit  in  the  vernacular  speech  of  Spain.  Impressively  archaic 
in  language,  earnestly  unaffected  in  style,  by  turns  familiar 
and  lofty  in  expression,  exemplifying  all  the  human  passions 
and  virtues  of  a  race  striving  for  the  expulsion  of  a  powerful 
invader,  this  single  poem  might  well  be  studied  in  detail  as 
embodying,  actually  and  prophetically,  the  genius  of  the 
people  whose  long  preparation  for  greatness  we  have  been 
rapidly  reviewing. 

Ruy  Diaz  de  Bivar  —  that  is  to  say,  Rodrigo,  son  of  Diego, 
of  Bivar,  known  alike  to  Christians  and  Moors  by  the  Arabic 
title  of  Cid  or  Lord  —  was  the  doughty  warrior  whose  exploits 
excited  at  times  the  admiration,  but  more  often  the  jealousy 
and  suspicion,  of  his  king,  Alfonso.  Thus,  in  the  mutilated 
opening  lines  —  which  are  not  the  beginning  —  of  the  poem. 


SPANISH   LITERATURE  237 

we  find  the  Cid  under  the  ban  and  interdict  of  his  sovereign, 
starting  into  exile :  — 

"De  los  SOS  ojos  tan  fuerte  mientre  lorando 
Tornava  la  cabega  e  estava  los  catando. 
Vio  puertas  abiertas  e  uqos  sin  cafiados, 
Alcandaras  vazias  sin  pielles  e  sin  mantos 
E  sin  falcones  e  sin  adtores  mudados. 
Sospiro  myo  Cid,  ca  mucho  avie  grandes  cuydados. 
Fablo  myo  Cid  bien  e  tan  mesurado : 
'  Grado  a  ti,  senor  padre,  que  estas  en  alto, 
Esto  me  an  buelto  myos  enemigos  malos.' " 

"The  following  translation  of  these  lines  is  taken  from 
Professor  James  Fitzmaurice-Kelly's  recent  "  Chapters  on 
Spanish  Literature,"  p.  17  :  — 

"  With  tearful  eyes  he  turned  to  gaze  upon  the  wreck  behind : 
His  rifled  coffers,  bursten  gates,  all  open  to  the  wind : 
No  mantle  left,   nor  robe  of  fur :  stript  bare  his  castle  hall : 
Nor  hawk  nor  falcon  in  the  mew,  the  perches  empty  all. 
Then  forth  in  sorrow  went  my  Cid,  and  a  deep  sigh  sighed  he ; 
Yet  with  a  measured  voice,  and  calm,  my  Cid  spake  loftily  — 
'  I  thank  thee,  God  our  Father,  thou  that  dwellest  upon  high, 
I  suffer  cruel  wrong  to-day,  but  of  mine  enemy.' " 

Followed  by  a  troop  of  faithful  friends,  the  Cid  betakes  him- 
self to  the  regions  held  by  the  Moors,  captures  their  castles, 
and  finally  gains  their  city  of  Valencia.  By  all  this  prowess  he 
wins  again,  hke  David  from  Saul,  the  favor  of  his  jealous 
prince,  and  wins  in  marriage  for  his  two  daughters  the  hands 
of  two  noble  suitors,  the  infantes  de  Carrion,  who  prove,  alas, 
all  unworthy  of  this  honor,  and  are  punished  for  their  cruelty, 
while  the  daughters  of  the  Cid  are  in  turn  wedded,  with  still 
greater  honors,  to  the  royal  princes,  respectively,  of  Navarre 
and  Aragon. 

Thus,  in  words  too  few  to  give  more  than  a  vague  impression 


238  SPANISH  LITERATURE 

of  the  poet's  story  has  been  brought  before  us  the  image  of 
Spain's  earhest  heroic  figure.  That  he  was  probably  a  historic 
and  not  a  purely  mythical  character  matters  little  to  us  here. 
Although  the  facts  have  been  much  disputed,  the  historians  of 
Literature  tell  us  who  his  father  was,  that  he  himself  was  born 
about  the  year  1040,  that  he  was  married  to  Jimena,  a  cousin 
of  King  Alfonso  VI,  in  1074,  that  he  was  exiled  by  his  king  in 
1081,  with  still  fuller  data  for  the  remainder  of  his  career. 
But  what  concerns  our  purpose  is  to  know  that  this  was 
the  poetic  hero  who  fired  the  imaginations,  and  filled  the 
memories,  and  embodied  the  ideals  of  the  Spanish  peo- 
ple at  the  earliest  period  of  their  surviving  Literature.  To 
us  it  signifies  that  so  great  was  the  part  he  played  and  the 
place  he  filled  in  the  heroism  of  his  time,  that  by  the  Arabic 
historians  he  is  constantly  spoken  of  as  *'Al-Kambeyator," 
the  Arabic  transliteration  of  his  Spanish  title  "El  campeador," 
"the  Champion";  while,  on  the  other  hand,  by  the  Spanish 
chroniclers  and  poets  he  is  more  frequently  called  by  the 
Arabic  designation  "Sid,"  "Lord,"  early  attached  to  him  and 
everywhere  recurr  ng  in  the  "Poema  del  Cid."  For  us,  as  in- 
vestigators of  the  spirit  of  heroic  Spanish  verse,  the  moving 
impulse  is  to  discover,  if  we  may,  in  the  rugged  ''Poema  del 
Cid"  the  vital  spark  that  kindled,  five  centuries  later,  through 
the  intermediary  of  the  "Mocedades  del  Cid"  of  Guillen  de 
Castro,  in  the  brain  of  the  Frenchman  Corneille  (in  his  drama 
of  the  "Cid")  the  glowing  picture  of  Spanish  chivalry  that 
typifies  more  widely  and  more  perfectly  than  any  other  non- 
Spanish  production  the  heroic  genius  of  the  Spanish  race. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  spirit  of  the  '*  Poem  of  the  Cid  " ;  what 
is  there  to  say  of  its  origin  and  form?  Scholars  have  been 
ready  to  find  in  it  evidences  of  the  influence  of  the  French 
" Chansons  de  geste,"  notably,  of  course,  of  the  "Chanson  de 
Roland."  That  the  "  Roland  "  was  known  in  Spain  at  the  time 
of  the  composition  of  the  "  Poema  del  Cid"  is  virtually  certain; 
that  the  author  of  the  "Cid"  had  heard  sung  or  recited 


SPANISH   LITERATURE  239 

the  "Song  of  Roland"  is  even  probable.  But,  granting  the 
correctness  of  this  view,  what  is  surprising  is  that  the  tone,  the 
touch,  the  swing,  the  vigor  of  the  "Poema  del  Cid,"  should  all 
be  so  palpably  different  from  the  same  characteristics  of  the 
"  Roland  " ;  while  it  is  no  less  true  that  the  tone  and  spirit  of  the 
Spanish  poem  are  as  truly  and  distinctively  Spanish  as  that 
the  tone  and  touch  of  the  Frankish  poem  are  distinctly  French. 
But,  this  being  true  of  the  "Cid,"  what  was  after  all  the 
destiny  on  Spanish  soil  —  where  indeed  the  very  scene  of  the 
poem  was  laid  —  of  the  marvelous  legend  of  "Roland"  that 
made  its  way  triumphant  throughout  all  the  rest  of  Europe  ? 
It  is  a  noteworthy  fact,  and  significant  of  the  comparative 
independence  of  the  epic  spirit  in  Spain,  that  the  "Chanson  de 
Roland, "  which  various  scholars  believe  to  have  influenced  the 
unknown  author  of  the  "Poema  del  Cid,"  found  no  direct 
imitation,  so  far  as  we  know,  in  Spain.  It  is  not  until  a 
much  later  period,  that  of  the  Spanish  "roraancero,"  the 
great  collection  of  Ballad  poetry  in  which  so  much  of  the 
genius  of  the  Spanish  people  is  embodied,  that  we  are  able 
to  discover  the  true  spiritual  descendants  in  Literature  of 
the  paladins  of  the  French  epic  who  fought  under  Charle- 
magne and  Roland  in  the  defiles  of  Roncevaux.  In 
the  Spanish  ballads  the  defeat  of  Roland,  as  the  army 
of  Charlemagne  was  withdrawing  through  the  passes  of  the 
Pyrenees,  is  attributed  by  the  native  folk-poets,  not  to  the 
treacherous  Basques,  to  whom  it  was  in  reality  due,  nor,  as  in 
the  French  epic,  to  the  overwhelming  number  of  the  Saracens, 
but  to  the  patriotism  of  the  Christian  Spaniards,  who  con- 
sidered their  country  to  have  been  invaded,  and  who  joined 
their  forces  to  drive  out  Charlemagne  and  all  his  hosts.  To 
meet  their  ideas  of  national  and  poetic  justice  a  native  hero 
must  be  exalted,  and  such  a  one  was  found  in  the  person  of  a 
character,  Bernardo  del  Carpio,  who  seems  to  have  been  purely 
imaginary,  or  at  most  one  who  had  distinguished  himself, 
in  the  far-off  past,  by  fighting  against  the  Arabs  and  not  against 


240  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

the  French,  and  around  this  national  hero  there  grew  up  a 
wealth  of  Ballad  Literature  in  which  the  fictitious  exploits  of 
Bernardo  are  exalted,  culminating  in  a  personal  combat 
between  Roland  and  Bernardo  del  Carpio,  in  which  of  course 
it  is  the  latter  who  is  victorious.  Thus,  while  Italy,  Germany, 
Scandinavia,  and  England  are  satisfied  in  turn  to  take 
up  without  notable  alterations  the  story  of  the  victories 
of  Charlemagne  and  his  paladins,  Spain,  on  the  lips  of 
her  poets,  turns  the  situation  to  the  enhancement  of  her 
own  national  renown.  Nor  let  it  be  supposed  that  the 
older  and  more  traditional  glories  of  the  "Cid  Cam- 
peador"  were  suffered  to  grow  dim  in  this  epico-lyric 
period  of  the  Spanish  "romancero,"  a  form  which  there  is  the 
less  need  here  to  illustrate  by  quotations,  even  were  there  time 
to  do  so,  because  of  the  well-known  and  spirited  English  ver- 
sions by  Lockhart,  Southey,  and  Gibson. 

It  is  time  to  point  out,  what  indeed  is  so  universally  felt  to  be 
true  as  to  sound  like  a  commonplace,  that  throughout  all  the 
Middle  Ages  Spain  was  the  most  naturally  chivalresque  of  all 
the  Christian  nations,  which  has  well  been  attributed  to  the  fact 
that,  while  the  other  Western  nations  were  seeking  an  outlet 
for  their  chivalrous  energies  by  carrying  the  Cross  to  Constan- 
tinople, the  Holy  Land,  and  Egypt,  Spain  was  for  seven  hun- 
dred years  shut  up  to  internecine  conflict  for  political  and 
religious  supremacy  with  a  highly  civilized  as  well  as  a  brave 
and  fanatical  intruder;  while,  on  the  side  of  Literature,  all 
the  sources  of  enchantment  and  refinement  that  prevailed  else- 
where in  Europe  poured  into  Spain  their  refreshing  streams. 
In  addition  to  the  French  "Chansons  de  geste, "  there  came 
with  the  pilgrims  of  Saint  James  of  Compostella  (Santiago  de 
Compostela)  the  weird  and  charming  tales  of  the  Celtic  cycle 
of  King  Arthur  and  Merlin,  tales  of  love  and  mystery,  of  giants 
and  of  dwarfs,  of  fairies  and  of  sorcerers,  of  enchantments  and 
of  love  philters. 

This  was  the  efflorescence  of  joyous  gaiety  that  followed 


SPANISH   LITERATURE  241 

the  final  expulsion  of  the  Moors  from  Spain  and  the  glorious 
discovery  of  a  new  world  by  Christopher  Columbus  at  the  end 
of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  course  of  the  sixteenth  saw  the 
exuberant  spread  in  Spain  of  the  chivalrous  romance  in  prose,  a 
form  of  which  the  other  nations  were  indeed  beginning  to  tire 
a  little,  but  which  between  Ferdinand  the  Catholic  and  Philip 
II  developed  in  Spain  with  an  amazing  richness  that  de- 
generated speedily  into  all  manner  of  imaginative  excess  and 
literary  extravagance.  In  this  orgy  of  unbridled  productive- 
ness personages  of  most  incongruous  origin  were  brought 
together  and  mingled  in  strange  confusion:  heroes  of  an- 
tiquity, Joshua  and  David  with  Alexander  and  Julius  Caesar, 
King  Arthur  with  King  Charlemagne,  Godfrey  de  Bouillon 
with  Robert  the  Devil,  Lancelot  of  the  Lake  with  Amadis  of 
Gaul  and  Palmerin  d'Oliva.  For  these  fantastic  tales  the  rage 
grew  so  intense  that  Guevara,  the  learned  courtier  of  Charles 
the  Fifth,  declares  that  "men  did  read  nothing  in  his  time 
but  such  shameful  books  as  'Amadis  de  Gaula,'  'Tristan,' 
'Primal eon,'  and  the  like,"  and  the  works  of  this  class  were 
finally  accounted  so  pernicious  that  ''  in  1553  they  were  prohib- 
ited by  law  from  being  printed  or  sold  in  the  American  colo- 
nies, and  in  1555  the  same  prohibition,  and  even  the  burning 
of  all  copies  of  them  extant  in  Spain  itself,  was  earnestly  asked 
for  by  the  Cortes."  Ticknor,  in  one  of  the  notes  to  his  history 
of  this  period,  cites  the  following  anecdote  as  evidence  of  the 
fanaticism  of  the  upper  as  well  as  of  the  lower  classes  on  the  sub- 
ject of  books  of  chivalry !  "A  Knight  came  home  one  day  from 
the  chase,  and  found  his  wife  and  daughters  and  their  women 
crying.  Surprised  and  grieved,  he  asked  them  if  any  child  or 
relation  were  dead.  'No,'  they  answered,  suffocated  with 
tears.  'Why  then  do  you  weep  so?'  he  rejoined,  still  more 
amazed.  'Sir,'  they  replied,  'Amadis  is  dead.'  They  had 
read  so  far." 

On  October  9,  1547,  was  baptized  Miguel  de  Cervantes  Saa- 
vedra.     To  have  proceeded  so  far  without  having  made  any 


242  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

direct  allusion  to  his  life  or  work  has  only  been  accomplished 
by  deliberate  intent;  for  while  very  much  that  comes  after 
his  time  remains  to  be  considered,  his  name  and  his  influence 
so  overshadow  other  Spanish  names  for  the  historian  of 
Literature  that  to  leave  him  even  temporarily  obscured  comes 
only  of  conscious  effort.  If  we  pause  for  a  moment  to  reflect, 
we  shall  perceive,  without  analysis  or  penetration  that  while 
the  other  great  and  universal  works  of  Literature  —  the  "  Iliad," 
the  "Divine  Comedy,"  the  dramas  of  Shakspere — make 
their  appeal  chiefly  to  the  mature  and  conscious  lover  of  Litera- 
ture, the  immortal  story  of  the  good  knight  of  La  Mancha  is 
the  joy  and  consolation  alike  of  young  and  old,  of  grave  and 
gay,  of  lettered  and  unlettered,  a  work  unique  in  the  circimi- 
stances  of  its  inception,  its  purpose,  and  its  execution. 

It  was  charmingly  said  of  Cervantes  in  this  University  not 
long  ago  by  Mr.  Fitzmaurice-Kelly  that  "some  men  live  their 
romances,  and  some  men  write  them.  It  was  given  to  Cer- 
vantes to  do  both,  and,  as  his  art  was  not  of  the  impersonal 
order,  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  read  his  work  without  a  desire 
to  know  more  of  the  rich  and  imposing  individuality  which 
informs  it."  With  a  boyhood  apparently  much  like  Shak- 
spere's,  containing  a  fair  amount  of  schooling  but  no  university 
training,  his  later  life  was  at  once  far  more  troublous  and  far 
more  romantic  than  that  of  his  great  contemporary.  As  he 
came  to  manhood,  he  could  look  back  upon  the  glorious  reign 
of  the  Emperor  Charles  the  Fifth  in  which  his  childhood  had 
been  passed,  and  be  stirred  with  the  spirit  of  adventure  that 
took  him  to  Rome  as  a  member  of  the  household  of  Cardinal 
Acquaviva,  at  the  time  when  Spain,  Venice,  and  the  Holy  See 
were  combining  in  a  league  against  the  Sultan  of  Turkey. 
He  was  in  the  hottest  of  the  fight,  on  board  one  of  the  galleys 
of  Don  John  of  Austria,  at  the  battle  of  Lepanto,  in  1571,  where 
he  was  seriously  wounded.  Four  years  later,  on  shipboard 
near  Marseilles,  he  was  captured  by  Moorish  pirates  and 
carried  off  to  Algiers.      There  he  became  the  slave  of  a  Greek 


SPANISH   LITERATURE  243 

renegade ;  made  three  most  exciting  but  unsuccessful  efforts  to 
escape;  and  finally,  in  1580,  and  in  his  thirty-fourth  year,  after 
five  bitter  years  of  slavery,  was  ransomed  for  five  hundred 
ducats,  settled  in  Madrid,  and  of  necessity  as  well  as  by  predilec- 
tion betook  himself  to  Literature  as  a  congenial  but  precari- 
ous means  of  livelihood.  Harsh  vicissitudes  and  only  partial 
success  attended  his  endeavors,  until,  when  approaching  the 
age  of  sixty  years,  he  became  the  author  of  one  of  the  most 
famous  books  in  the  history  of  the  world,  quite  probably 
begun  and  perhaps  also  ended  in  Seville  jail,  "The  Ingenious 
Gentleman  Don  Quixote  of  La  Mancha."  The  first  part  was 
published  in  1605,  the  second  in  1615,  many  important  works 
having  intervened.  A  little  later,  in  the  preface  to  his  final 
composition,  the  romance  of  "Persiles  and  Sigismunda," 
he  writes:  "And  so,  farewell  to  jesting,  farewell  my  merry 
humors,  farewell  my  gay  friends,  for  I  feel  that  I  am  dying, 
and  have  no  desire  but  soon  to  see  you  happy  in  the  other  life." 
And  in  a  few  days  he  was  dead. 

What  was  Cervantes'  purpose  in  writing  "Don  Quixote"? 
The  question  has  been  much  disputed,  and  many  strained  inter- 
pretations have  been  offered,  one  cirious  suggestion  being 
that  the  book  set  forth  "some  of  the  undertakings  and  gallan- 
tries of  the  Emperor  Charles  V,"  while  Daniel  Defoe  declared 
it  to  be  an  emblematic  history  of,  and  a  just  satire  upon,  the 
Duke  de  Medina  Sidonia,  "a  person,"  as  he  says,  "very 
remarkable  at  that  time  in  Spain."  But  Cervantes  himself 
has  really  answered  the  question  as  to  the  purpose  which  he 
had  in  view,  when  at  the  outset  of  the  book  he  exclaims  that 
"  he  looks  to  nothing  but  to  undoing  the  vogue  and  authority 
throughout  the  world  and  among  the  common  people,  of  the 
books  of  chivalry,"  while  at  the  end  of  the  second  part,  ten 
years  later,  he  repeats  that  "he  had  had  no  other  desire  than 
to  render  abhorred  of  men  the  false  and  absurd  stories  con- 
tained in  the  books  of  chivalry." 

And  yet  it  cannot  but  be  true  that  these  declarations  are 


244  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

to  some  extent  whimsical,  or,  as  we  might  say  in  the  waggish 
language  of  a  later  day,  "Pickwickian."  If  ever  there  was  a 
book  in  the  world  that,  from  the  earliest  chapters,  grew  and 
grew  bej^ond  its  author's  ken  and  first  intention,  surely  that 
book  is  Cervantes'  "Don  Quixote."  One  can  scarcely 
help  believing  that  in  the  author's  brain  pretty  much  all  the 
stock  in  trade  for  the  new  story  were  the  gaunt  figures  of  the 
ingenious  gentleman  and  of  Rocinante,  and  the  holocaust  of  the 
books  of  chivalry  in  the  courtyard  under  the  attentive  watch- 
care  of  the  niece,  the  barber,  and  the  curate.  The  return  of 
the  sprightly  Don  after  the  adventure  with  the  traders  of  To- 
ledo may  well  have  been,  in  the  writer's  mind,  the  culmina- 
tion of  a  mere  short  story,, and  the  beginning  for  the  worthy 
gentleman  of  a  monomania  cured  and  a  life  of  better  things. 
In  fact,  having  got  only  a  little  farther  on,  at  the  end  of  Chap- 
ter VIII,  the  author  concludes  "Part  First,"  so-called,  and 
begins  Part  II  of  his  expanding  tale,  a  division  altogether  disre- 
garded when,  ten  years  later,  he  publishes  a  sequel  to  the  work 
of  1605,  called  Part  II. 

How  shall  we  sum  up  the  qualities  of  so  great  a  book  ?  •  In 
despair  of  succeeding  in  the  attempt,  I  shall  have  recourse  to 
the  simple,  unvarnished  record  of  its  effect  on  the  mind  of  one 
of  the  most  clear-visioned  of  American  men  of  letters,  Mr. 
William  Dean  Howells,  as  recounted  in  his  book  of  remi- 
niscences entitled  "  My  Literary  Passions  "  (p.  26):  — 

"The  reading  of  'Don  Quixote'  went  on  throughout  my  boy- 
hood, so  that  I  cannot  recall  any  distinctive  period  of  it  when  I 
was  not,  more  or  less,  reading  that  book.  In  a  boy's  way  I  knew  it 
well  when  I  was  ten,  and  a  few  years  ago,  when  I  was  fifty,  I  took  it 
up  in  the  admirable  new  version  of  Ormsby,  and  found  it  so  full  of 
myself  and  of  my  own  irrevocable  past  that  I  did  not  find  it  very 
gay.  But  I  made  a  great  many  discoveries  in  it ;  things  I  had  not 
dreamt  of  were  there,  and  must  always  have  been  there,  and  other 
things  wore  a  new  face,  and  made  a  new  effect  upon  me.  I  had  my 
doubts,  my  reserves,  where  once  I  had  given  it  my  whole  heart  with- 


SPANISH   LITERATURE  245 

out  question,  and  yet  in  what  formed  the  greatness  of  the  book  it 
seemed  to  me  greater  than  ever.  I  beheve  that  its  free  and  simple 
design,  where  event  follows  event  without  the  fettering  control  of 
intrigue,  but  where  all  grows  naturally  out  of  character  and  condi- 
tions, is  the  supreme  form  of  fiction ;  and  I  cannot  help  thinking  that 
if  we  ever  have  a  great  American  novel  it  must  be  built  up  on  some 
such  large  and  noble  lines.  As  for  the  central  figure,  Don  Quixote 
himself,  in  his  dignity  and  generosity,  his  unselfish  ideals,  and  his 
fearless  devotion  to  them,  he  is  always  heroic  and  beautiful ;  and  I 
was  very  glad  in  my  latest  look  at  his  history  that  I  had  truly  con- 
ceived of  him  at  first  and  had  felt  the  sublimity  of  his  nature.  I 
did  not  want  to  laugh  at  him  so  much,  and  I  could  not  laugh  at  all 
any  more  at  some  of  the  things  done  to  him.  Once  they  seemed 
funny,  but  now  only  cruel,  and  even  stupid,  so  that  it  was  strange  to 
realize  his  qualities  and  indignities  as  both  flowing  from  the  same 
mind.  But  in  my  mature  experience,  which  threw  a  broader  light 
on  the  fable,  I  was  happy  to  keep  my  old  love  of  an  author  who  had 
been  almost  personally  dear  to  me.  .  .  .  Cervantes  made  his 
race  jDrecious  to  me,  and  I  am  sure  that  it  must  have  been  he  who 
fitted  me  to  enjoy  and  understand  the  American  author  who  now 
stayed  me  on  Spanish  ground  and  kept  me  happy  in  Spanish  air  — 
Washington  Irving.  .  .  . 

"  I  read  the  '  Conquest  of  Granada '  after  I  read  '  Don  Quixote, 
and  ...  I  loved  the  historian  so  much  because  I  had  loved  the 
novelist  more.  Of  course  I  did  not  perceive  then  that  Irving 's 
charm  came  largely  from  Cervantes  .  .  .  but  I  dare  say  that  this 
fact  had  insensibly  a  great  deal  to  do  with  my  liking.  ...  I  really 
cannot  say  now  whether  I  loved  the  Moors  or  the  Spaniards  more. 
I  fought  on  both  sides  ;  I  would  not  have  had  the  Spaniards  beaten, 
and  yet  when  the  Moors  lost  I  was  vanquished  with  them ;  and  when 
the  poor  young  King  Boabdil  .  .  .  heaved  the  Last  Sigh  of  the 
Moor,  as  his  eyes  left  the  roofs  of  Granada  forever,  it  was  as  much 
my  grief  as  if  it  had  burst  from  my  own  breast." 

Listen  also  to  another  voice  in  praise  of  Cervantes'  im- 
mortal work  (Fitzmaurice-Kelly,  "  Spanish  Literature," 
p.  232). 

"  Small  wonder  if  the  world  received  '  Don  Quixote '  with  delight ! 
There  was  nothing  like  it  before ;  there  has  been  nothing  to  eclipse 


246  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

it  since.  It  ends  an  epoch  and  begins  another ;  it  intones  the  dirge 
of  the  mediaeval  novel ;  it  announces  the  arrival  of  the  new  genera- 
tions, and  it  belongs  to  both  the  past  and  the  coming  ages.  At  the 
point  where  the  paths  diverge,  'Don  Quixote'  stands,  dominating 
the  entire  landscape  of  fiction.  Time  has  failed  to  wither  its  va- 
riety or  to  lessen  its  force,  and  posterity  accepts  it  as  a  masterpiece  of 
humoristic  fancy,  of  complete  observation,  and  unsurpassed  inven- 
tion. It  ceases,  in  effect,  to  belong  to  Spain  as  a  mere  local  posses- 
sion, though  nothing  can  deprive  her  of  the  glory  of  producing  it. 
Cervantes  ranks  with  Shakspere  and  with  Homer  as  a  citizen  of  the 
world,  a  man  of  all  times  and  countries,  and  '  Don  Quixote,'  with 
'Hamlet'  and  the  'Iliad,'  belongs  to  universal  Literature,  and  is 
become  an  eternal  pleasaunce  of  the  mind  for  all  nations." 

Of  one  of  the  most  vital  and  enduring  forms  of  Literature, 
perhaps  indeed  the  highest  and  most  significant  of  all,  no  word 
has  yet  been  spoken.  I  mean  the  Drama.  In  the  latter  half 
of  the  sixteenth  century  the  theater  was  still  in  a  rude  and  un- 
developed condition  in  Spain.  It  remained  for  Cervantes' 
greatest  contemporary  and  only  real  rival,  Lope  de  Vega,  to 
place  the  Spanish  stage  on  a  higher  plane,  and  render  it  illus- 
trious throughout  the  world.  Lope  de  Vega  was  a  genuine 
example  of  what  is  called  "a  youthful  prodigy."  At  a  mo- 
ment when  our  own  country  is  said  to  have  produced,  in  a 
single  university,  no  less  than  four  youthful  prodigies,  it 
may  be  interesting  to  remind  ourselves,  by  the  notable  case 
of  Lope  de  Vega,  that  youthful  prodigies  occasionally  redeem 
in  their  maturer  years  the  precocious  promises  of  their  infancy. 
According  to  his  friend  Montalvan,  Lope  de  Vega  not  only 
read  Latin  as  well  as  Spanish  at  the  age  of  five,  but  before  he 
had  learned  how  to  write,  was  wont  at  school  to  share  his  break- 
fast with  the  older  boys,  in  order  to  get  them  to  take  down  for 
him  the  verses  that  he  dictated.  To  some  who  have  children 
of  the  unprodigious  type  it  may  be  a  comfort  to  be  informed 
that  Lope,  as  he  himself  tells  us,  at  this  interesting  period  of 
his  career  "avoided  the  mathematics,  which  he  found  unsuited 


SPANISH  LITERATURE  247 

to  his  humor."  His  earUest  surviving  play,  "El  Verdadero 
Amante,"  written  at  the  age  of  twelve,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
fourteenth  volume  of  his  dramatic  works,  and  was  actually  put 
upon  the  stage.  At  the  age  of  fifteen  he  was  already  a  soldier 
in  the  wars,  and  later  spent  some  time  at  the  University  of 
Alcala,  and  was  still  later  attached  to  the  Duke  of  Alva,  grand- 
son of  the  remorseless  Duke.  In  1 588  he  served  at  sea  in  the 
Invincible  Armada,  where  he  found  time  to  write  his  long  poem 
entitled  the  "  Hermosura  de  Angelica,"  purporting  to  be  a  con- 
tinuation of  Ariosto's  "Orlando  Furioso."  But  it  is  only  of 
the  dramatic  output  of  Lope  that  there  is  time  at  present  to 
speak,  except,  indeed,  to  mention  his  epic  poem  called  the 
"Dragontea,"  the  name  and  subject  of  which  are  taken  from 
Sir  Francis  Drake,  whose  prominent  share  in  the  defeat  of  the 
Armada  caused  him  to  be  chosen  as  the  special  object  of  Lope's 
bitter  poetical  attack. 

Of  Lope's  place  in  the  Literature  of  Spain  it  may  be  said 
that,  as  Shakspere  is  the  real  founder  of  the  English  theater, 
so  Lope  is  the  founder  of  the  Spanish ;  as  Cervantes  is  the 
representative  citizen  of  the  world  for  Spain,  Lope  de  Vega 
is  the  typical  genius  of  the  Spanish  character.  His  produc- 
tivity was  enormous;  his  facility  of  invention  and  expression 
almost  incredible;  his  intellectual  endowment  incomparable, 
leaving  nothing  unattempted:  short  tales,  eclogues,  epistles, 
sonnets,  pastorals,  the  epic  poem,  the  romantic  novel.  Of 
plays  he  is  said  to  have  written  eighteen  hundred.  Hazlitt 
denies  the  tale  of  his  having  composed  a  play  before  breakfast, 
but  it  is  believed  to  be  a  fact  that  on  scores  of  occasions  he 
finished  an  entire  play  within  the  twenty-four  hours.  Under 
such  conditions  an  author  cannot  but  suffer  from  the  defects 
of  his  qualities.  A  writer  by  some  accounted  greater  than 
Lope  was  to  arise  on  the  dramatic  horizon.  The  generation 
that  had  for  a  time  been  carried  away  by  Lope  turned  to  the 
rising  star  of  Calderon,  the  preeminent  representative  of 
Spanish  literary  genius  in  the  seventeenth  century.     Though 


248  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

he  was  not  precocious  like  Lope,  he  was  at  least  good-naturedly 
spoken  of  by  the  latter,  when  the  youthful  Calderon  had 
carried  off  a  prize,  as  one  "who  in  his  tender  years  earns  the 
laurels  which  time  is  wont  to  produce  only  with  hoary  hairs." 
Alike  successful  with  plays  secular,  religious,  and  philosophical, 
he  was  so  indifferent  to  the  fate  of  his  secular  pieces  that  it 
is  almost  by  a  fortunate  chance  that  they  have  been  iden- 
tified and  preserved  to  us.  Of  the  formal  plays  the  number 
is  one  hundred  and  twenty,  of  the  one-act  pieces,  or  "autos 
sacramentales,"  we  may  count  something  like  seventy. 
Though  the  "autos"  are  now  little  read  in  Spain  and  almost 
not  at  all  outside  of  it,  it  was  the  opinion  of  Shelley,  and 
of  various  others  since  his  day,  that  one  of  the  strongest  sides 
of  his  dramatic  art  is  displayed  in  these  little  pieces,  a  form  of 
composition  peculiarly  typical  of  the  Spanish  temperament, 
being  intended  to  present  symbolically  the  mystery  of  the 
Eucharist  by  representation  in  the  open  air  at  the  festival  of 
Corpus  Christi.  But  after  all  it  is  by  such  philosophical 
plays  as  that  entitled  "La  Vida  es  Sueno  "  that  Calderon  is 
known,  and  will  continue  to  be  known,  as  the  stately,  earnest, 
loyal,  and  imposing  dramatist  of  the  seventeenth-century 
Spanish  stage. 

The  step  is  a  long  one  from  the  times  of  Calderon  to  the 
Hving  or  recently  living  writers  of  the  present  day,  but  the 
necessity  of  taking  it  is  imposed  by  the  advancing  hour. 
What  has  the  Spain  of  to-day  to  offer  to  the  student  of  con- 
temporary European  thought?  For  a  long  time  French 
literary  products  in  many  fields  have  engrossed  the  attention 
of  Spain's  thinkers  and  readers,  but  there  is  one  field  in  which 
for  a  good  many  years  native  work  of  the  highest  and  most 
engaging  quality  has  been  put  forth,  to  the  entertainment 
and  delight  not  only  of  the  reading  pubhc  of  the  Peninsula, 
but  of  the  readers  of  all  the  modern  nations.  It  is  needless 
to  say  that  I  speak  of  the  field  of  fiction,  while  the  only  two 
authors  whom  it  will  be  possible  to  mention   by  name  are 


SPANISH  LITERATURE  249 

Juan  Valera,  late  minister  of  the  Spanish  government  to  the 
United  States,  and  Perez  Galdos,  one  of  the  most  eminent 
writers  of  fiction  in  the  world  to-day. 

It  is  surely  not  by  mere  chance  that  the  finest  work  of  each 
of  these  Uterary  masters  is  occupied  with  problems  that  are 
fundamentally  spiritual  and  religious,  but  this  is  certainly  due 
to  the  fact  that  the  heart  of  the  Spaniard  to-day  is  profoundly 
religious,  as  it  has  ever  been  in  the  past;  while  both  Valera 
and  Galdos  are  too  closely  in  touch  with  the  pulsation  of 
the  people's  heart  to  fail  to  respond  to  every  stirring  of  the 
popular  emotion.  I  am  fain  to  speak  of  Valera's  "Pepita 
Jimenez  "  as  if  it  were  the  work  of  yesterday,  because  time 
flies  so  fast  that  the  readers  of  that  most  notable  production 
must  still  count  the  enjoyment  of  it  as  one  of  their  recent 
pleasures.  This  is  the  book  of  which  Coventry  Patmore 
wrote  as  an  example  of  "that  complete  synthesis  of  gravity 
of  matter  and  gaiety  of  manner  which  is  the  glittering  crown 
of  art,  and  which,  out  of  Spanish  Literature,  is  to  be  found 
only  in  Shakspere,  and  even  in  him  in  a  far  less  obvious  degree." 
Of  his  "El  Comendador  Mendoza,"  it  must  suffice  to  say  that 
it  bears  the  mark  of  being  a  sublimated  autobiography.  Of 
Galdos  likewise  I  shall  mention  only  two  preeminent  works 
out  of  the  great  wealth  of  his  productivity  —  his  "Dona 
Perfecta,"  and,  though  it  is  a  play  and  not  a  novel,  his  "Elec- 
tra,"  the  keynote  of  both  of  which  is,  that  Uberty  —  political 
liberty,  religious  liberty  —  is  the  world's  best,  supremest  gift. 

On  the  subject  of  contemporary  Spanish  Literature,  I  shall 
venture  to  quote  a  few  words  from  no  less  distinguished  a 
representative  of  it  than  the  Countess  Pardo  Bazan,  in  which 
she  says: — 

"  The  novel,  alternating  between  the  old  naturalism  and  the  neo- 
romantic  spiritualism,  has  been  losing  vogue.  Our  most  famous 
novelist,  Perez  Galdos,  after  having  sought  a  greater  glory  in  writing 
for  the  stage,  has  left  off  publishing  and  has  gone  ardently  into  poli- 


250  SPANISH   LITERATURE 

tics.  His  name  is  one  of  the  four  or  five  which  are  mentioned  in  the 
hypothetical  case  that  a  Spanish  Republic  should  ever  want  a 
President.  .  .  . 

"  From  Dramatic  Literature,  Echegaray,  honored  with  the  Nobel 
prize,  has  never  definitely  retired.  He  had  filled  our  stage  like 
another  Lope  de  Vega,  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  yet 
to-day  his  plays  are  not  presented.  .  .  .  Last  year  there  were  pre- 
sented in  Spain  more  than  a  thousand  theatrical  pieces,  flowers  of  a 
single  day.  The  public,  always  the  same,  demands  novelty.  That 
being  so,  it  cannot  expect  to  have  masterpieces." 

In  conclusion,  it  may  be  said  that  the  predominating  fact 
in  the  development  of  literary  self-expression  in  Spain  has 
been  that,  while  Spanish  Literature,  like  the  English  Litera- 
ture, takes  its  root  in  French  and  Italian  soil,  it  is  supremely 
true  that  Spain  has  in  all  periods  held  firmly  to  her  national 
individuality,  to  her  devotion  to  high  and  noble  ideals,  to 
love  of  country,  love  of  honor,  love  of  truth,  and  love  of  the 
faith  and  religion  for  which  in  all  ages  her  sons  have  unflinch- 
ingly fought  and  died. 


XIII 

ENGLISH   LITERATURE 

By  Ashley  H.  Thorndike,  Professor  of  English 

We  are  not  here  to  praise  English  Literature  or  to  recount 
its  glories.  Its  greatness,  its  long  unbroken  history,  its  splen- 
did names,  are  for  you  commonplaces;  to  you  it  means  books 
that  have  been  treasured  and  cherished,  that  have  been  the 
ever-renewing  springs  of  your  mirth  and  solace  and  invigora- 
tion.  For  you  it  is  a  friendship  and  an  intimacy.  But  even 
for  those  who  care  little  for  Literature  and  who  knock  rarely  at 
her  doors,  her  influence  is  none  the  less  intimate  and  abiding. 
Like  our  laws,  our  institutions,  and  our  faiths,  our  Literature 
is  a  part  of  the  heritage  of  English-speaking  peoples.  It  has 
paralleled  and  reflected  their  development  and  partaken  of 
their  peculiarities.  It  represents  the  centuries  behind  us; 
it  has  had  its  part,  and  it  still  has,  in  all  that  we  mean  by  na- 
tional or  racial  progress;  it  is  a  social  bond  that  unites  the 
millions  of  to-day  with  the  millions  of  yesterday  or  to-morrow; 
it  still  contributes  and  ministers  to  our  beliefs  and  hopes; 
it  reflects  itself  directly  or  indirectly  in  the  daily  thought  and 
feeling  of  every  one  of  us.  We  approach  English  Literature, 
therefore,  not  as  an  imposing  collection  of  beautiful  works  of 
art,  not  as  a  museum  of  the  achievements  of  genius,  not  as  a 
Hall  of  Fame,  nor  even  as  an  assembly  of  familiar  and  noble 
friends;  but  rather  as  the  record  and  expression  of  English 
minds,  as  a  living  thing  in  whose  growth  and  dominion  we, 
as  our  forefathers,  have  a  share.  We  ask  what  has  been 
and  what  is  its  meaning  for  those  of  English  birth  or  speech  ? 

251 


252  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

What  is  the  endowment  which  it  confers  on  the  race  of  to- 
morrow? 

These  questions,  at  first  thought,  do  not  seem  to  indicate 
the  way  to  a  clear  demarcation  of  a  national  literature.  For 
Literature  is  older  than  the  nations,  or  the  races.  It  began 
with  the  dawn  of  culture,  and  it  has  continued  its  sway  in 
many  climes  and  tongues  through  the  long  advance  of  civi- 
lization. Its  great  masterpieces  in  the  Hebrew,  Greek,  and 
Latin  languages  have  been  the  pillars  of  fire  and  cloud  that 
have  guided  the  peoples  of  Western  Europe  out  of  their  bond- 
age into  a  freedom  where  they  have  created  literatures  of 
their  own.  In  modern  times,  through  the  ever-increasing 
intercommunication  among  these  nations,  Literature  has  be- 
come in  no  small  measure  the  result  of  constant  borrowing 
and  exchanging.  No  great  work  in  one  language  is  without 
its  influence  on  other  nations;  no  national  literature  at  any- 
time stands  by  itself  without  large  support  from  outside.  The 
greatest  writers  are  adopted  by  peoples  not  their  own,  and 
become  essential  parts  of  foreign  traditions.  The  literary 
impulse  now  struggling  in  some  future  poet  of  the  Sierras  shall 
learn  from  ^Eschylus  and  Vergil,  Dante,  Cervantes,  Moliere, 
and  Goethe  before  it  ventures  flight.  In  spite  of  her  isolation 
fi'om  the  Continent,  England  has  shared,  and  usually  followed, 
in  all  the  movements  of  European  culture,  and  her  Literature 
has  always  been  heavily  indebted  to  those  of  other  nations. 
These  borrowings  have  been  of  all  possible  kinds,  ranging 
from  the  adoption  of  a  suggested  idea  to  detailed  copying  of 
treatment  and  expression.  Often  such  borrowing  and  lend- 
ing back  and  forth  have  become  complicated  beyond  the  possi- 
bility of  umaveling.  The  relation  of  English  Literature  to 
other  national  literatures  is,  in  fact,  fully  as  much  one  of  com- 
plex and  multiple  resemblances  as  one  of  prevailing  and  essen- 
tial differences. 

Even  if  we  could  wave  aside  the  resemblances  and  consider 
only  the  differences,  our  subject  would  yet  retain  a  large 


ENGLISH   LITERATURE  253 

share  of  its  difficulties;  for  the  Literature  of  any  generation 
is  varied,  complex,  and  contradictory.  Its  distinction  from 
any  other  national  literature  of  that  time  has  been  the  result- 
ant of  innumerable  causes,  and  is  displayed  in  an  enormous 
variety  of  effects.  There  can  be  no  brief  and  satisfactory 
characterization  of  a  literature  so  varied  and  extensive  as 
that  of  the  English  people.  To  get  anything  like  unity  of 
effect  we  must  needs  go  far  back  to  a  time  when  national  life 
was  simpler  and  authors  fewer  than  now,  to  a  time,  in  fact, 
of  which  very  few  records  have  been  preserved  and  of  which 
our  knowledge  is  consequeiitly  scanty.  "Beowulf"  and  a  few 
fragments  of  Anglo-Saxon  poetry  present  glimpses  of  the  life 
of  a  pagan  Germanic  people,  a  primitive  heroic  age,  far  more 
fully  and  nobly  described  in  the  Old  Norse  Eddas.  Later 
the  Literature  of  the  Angles  and  the  Saxons  becomes  domi- 
nated by  that  of  European  Christendom,  and  then  for  a  while 
after  the  Norman  Conquest  there  is  a  submergence  of  vernacu- 
lar Literature.  When  it  reasserts  itself,  there  is  a  new  quick- 
ening from  Celtic  romance,  but  for  many  generations  the 
spread  of  ideas  and  of  literary  forms  characteristic  of  the 
Middle  Ages  is  carried  on  in  England  mainly  under  French 
auspices.  Not  until  the  fourteenth  century  did  English 
Literature  attain  national  and  individual  greatness,  notably 
in  two  men,  Langland  and  Chaucer.  The  first,  or  whoever 
was  the  author  of  "Piers  Plowman,"  was  almost  untouched  bj'' 
direct  foreign  influence;  he  was  a  democrat,  a  dreamer  sing- 
ing of  social  unrest  and  aspiration,  hating  things  as  they  were, 
praying  for  better  government,  better  opportunity  for  the 
individual  worker,  and  a  fairer  system  of  society.  Typically 
English,  he  spoke  for  the  English  people  of  his  age.  The 
second,  Chaucer,  was  a  man  of  the  world,  an  artist  and  a 
scholar,  who  took  all  he  could  get  from  French,  Italian,  or 
Latin.  He  was  observant,  tolerant,  and  ironical,  a  humorist, 
and,  in  the  broad  sense  of  the  word,  a  humanist,  who  studied 
men  even  more  closely  and  lovingly  than  his  worthy  authors, 


254  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

and  for  the  same  reason,  because  he  cared  above  all  to  retell 
what  he  read  or  saw  in  a  beautiful  and  enduring  fashion.  He 
did  not  picture  what  Langland  saw,  he  was  the  opposite  of 
Langland  in  almost  every  respect,  yet  surely  his  poetry  is 
characteristically  English.  Whose  is  more  so,  Chaucer's  or 
Langland 's  ? 

After  this  fashion  we  might  come  down  from  generation  to 
generation,  through  the  eras  of  the  Transition,  the  Renais- 
sance, of  Neo-Classicism,  and  of  Romanticism;  we  might 
examine  changes  in  language,  in  government,  in  literary  rela- 
tions leading  to  the  successive  dominance  of  Latin,  Itahan, 
French,  and  German  ideas  and  forms;  and  in  spite  of  our 
extended  analysis  we  should  find  it  difficult  to  decide  in  each 
generation  what  movements,  or  even  what  authors,  are  most 
characteristically  English.  Let  us  take  them  in  couples, 
pairing  two  writers  who  are  important  and  representative,  but 
diametrically  opposed  in  many  traits,  and  then  ask  which  is 
the  more  characteristically  English:  Shakspere  or  Bacon? 
Milton  or  Dryden?  Pope  or  Defoe?  Johnson  or  Cowper? 
Scott  or  Shelley?  Or  who  represents  most  typically  English 
Literature  in  the  nineteenth  century:  Longfellow  or  Whit- 
man? Cooper  or  Hawthorne?  Browning  or  Tennyson?  Car- 
lyle  or  Newman?  Emerson  or  Disraeli?  Dickens's  novels  or 
Matthew  Arnold's  poems?    Walter  Pater  or  Mark  Twain? 

It  is  needless  to  go  on  multiplying  the  complexities  of  our 
subject.  Enough  has  been  said  to  indicate  a  few  of  the  many 
complications  which  our  discussion  will  seek  to  avoid,  and  to 
afford  a  glimpse  of  some  extensive  and  interesting  fields  of 
study  into  which  we  shall  not  venture.  Even  if  the  relations 
of  English  to  other  literatures,  and  the  different  aspects  of 
successive  periods,  and  the  various  manifestations  of  any 
moment  of  our  literary  history,  all  be  neglected,  we  may  still 
seek  for  suggestions  toward  a  summary  of  the  characteristics 
which  Literature  has  developed  and  the  meaning  which 
it  has  acquired   from   its  particular   national   environment. 


ENGLISH   LITERATURE  255 

Let  us  return  to  our  general  inquiry  and  consider  how  the 
vital  literary  principle,  which  is  ever  transforming  experience 
into  song  and  story  and  sermon,  has  been  preserved  and 
nourished  among  the  English  people,  and  what  for  them  has 
been  the  significance  of  this  leaven  of  imagination  and  sym- 
pathy. 

An  analogy  readily  presents  itself  between  the  growth  of 
Literature  and  the  evolution  of  English  political  government. 
In  their  development  of  political  institutions  the  English 
have  been  distinguished  among  nations  by  an  impatience  of 
authority,  in  whatever  form  of  centralization  it  appeared, 
and  by  an  insistence  on  the  freedom  of  the  individual  person. 
While  they  have  encouraged  liberty  to  broaden  slowly  down 
from  precedent  to  precedent,  they  have  been  distrustful  of 
any  violent  break  from  the  past  or  any  sudden  conversion 
under  the  persuasion  of  theory.  They  have  preferred  com- 
promise to  formula,  the  practical  and  the  expedient  to  the 
theoretical  and  systematic.  Hostile  to  system  or  codifica- 
tion, or  centralization,  clinging  to  government  in  small  units, 
to  provincial  and  parochial  control,  they  have  nevertheless 
built  up  a  great  system  of  political  institutions,  the  wonder- 
fully efficient  machinery  of  an  empire.  Here  has  been  at  work 
the  same  national  character  which  has  expressed  itself  in 
Literature.  As  in  politics,  there  has  been  no  central  author- 
ity, but  a  steady  growth  from  national  precedent  and  tradition, 
and  a  distrust  of  theory  or  system.  In  Literature  as  in  politics 
there  has  been  no  control  by  a  class,  or  caste,  or  profession, 
no  control  by  one  city,  not  even  by  London.  Literature  has 
been  provincial,  parochial,  making  its  home  in  Edinburgh, 
or  Boston,  or  Ayrshire.  It  has  not  been  monopolized  by  the 
clergy,  or  the  courtiers,  or  the  lettered.  Its  doors  have  ever 
opened  wider  and  wider,  and  tradesmen  and  peasants  have 
won  its  greatest  honors.  Englishmen  have  insisted  on  all 
possible  freedom  for  the  individual  in  Literature  as  elsewhere, 
and  out  of  the  diversities  and  differences  of  this  untrammeled 


256  ENGLISH   LITERATURE 

individualism,  English  Literature  has  attained  its  unity  and 
its  organic  growth.  Like  the  political  constitution,  so  the 
English  Literature  has  developed,  not  in  response  to  any 
theory  of  what  Literature  is  or  ought  to  be,  and  not  in  re- 
sponse to  any  authority  or  criticism,  but  by  closely  adapting 
itself  to  the  varying  local  life  and  thought  of  the  people.  If 
there  has  been  any  one  guiding  ideal,  it  is  the  same  which  has 
directed  the  creation  of  English  political  institutions,  a  faith 
in  the  rights  of  the  individual. 

Literature  in  modern  times  as  contrasted  with  antiquity 
has  undergone  an  enormous  expansion.  Its  subjects  and 
forms  are  more  nmnerous,  it  reflects  a  more  complex  life,  it 
appeals  to  a  vaster  and  more  variegated  public.  In  this 
expansion  the  English  people  since  the  sixteenth  century 
have  played  a  leading  part.  Their  great  books  have  not  been 
the  outcome  of  a  national  attainment  either  of  high  artistic 
standards  and  taste,  or  of  a  thorough  intelligence  and  culture. 
In  neither  of  these  respects  has  the  nation  ever  for  a  moment 
equaled  the  achievement  of  the  Athenian  civilization,  and  its 
Literature  has  borne  the  marks  of  its  deficiencies.  Its  great 
books  have  been  the  results  of  efforts  to  extend  the  scope  of 
Literature  and  to  influence  a  wider  pubhc.  They  have  often 
been  approved  by  the  vulgar  as  quickly  as  by  the  cultured. 
Take  the  books  that  have  most  influenced  foreign  litera- 
tures, that  have  exercised  a  great  sway  over  the  world:  the 
Elizabethan  drama,  including  Shakspere,  the  eighteenth- 
century  novels,  Scott's  romances,  Byron's  poems.  These 
were  all  daring  departures  from  old  forms,  in  an  effort  to 
make  use  of  new  experience,  and  they  all  aimed  at  the  popular 
approval  which  they  won.  And  many  other  authors,  who 
might  be  cited  as  less  representative  of  popular  success,  have 
been,  like  Browning  and  Wordsworth,  equally  intent  on 
enlarging  the  boundaries  of  Literature  and  on  leading  the 
multitude  into  their  new-found  lands.  We  may  return  to 
our  analogy.    In  Literature,  as  in  politics,  the  English  people 


ENGLISH   LITERATURE  257 

have  been  foremost  among  modern  nations  in  expansion  and 
democratization.  They  have  built  up  both  an  individuahstic 
democracy  and  a  vast  empire. 

These  achievements  in  Literature  have  not  been  unaccom- 
panied by  defects  and  deficiencies.  Our  energy  and  indi- 
viduahty  have  been  noted  by  foreign  critics,  but  they  have 
charged  us  with  many  faults,  to  which  they  have  sometimes 
applied  a  single  phrase  —  lack  of  form. 

In  the  first  place,  Form  is  often  judged  by  classical  stan- 
dards. Formlessness  becomes  another  word  for  a  difference 
from  the  masterpieces  of  Greece  and  Rome,  or  rather  from 
certain  masterpieces.  The  great  masters  of  simplicity, 
dignity,  and  sanity,  —  Homer,  Sophocles,  and  Horace,  —  these 
are  assumed  to  be  the  guides  to  perfection.  They  are  the 
ultima  Thule ;  you  cannot  go  beyond  them.  And  you  cannot 
depart  away  from  them;  straight  toward  their  beacon  lies 
the  path  of  literary  greatness;  on  either  side  are  the  breakers 
of  formlessness.  While  English  writers  have  turned  again 
and  again  to  the  classics  for  models  and  inspiration,  they  have 
not  kept  within  this  straight  and  narrow  pathway.  Without 
now  questioning  whether  this  is  for  better  or  worse,  or  how 
far  other  matters  than  form  are  involved,  we  must,  I  think, 
admit  that  there  is  no  connotation  of  the  word  classical  which 
will  render  it  applicable  to  English  Literature.  Our  indi- 
vidualistic expansion  has,  in  fact,  carried  us  farther  than  any 
other  literature  of  modern  Europe  in  divergence  from  classical 
guides  and  instruction.  If  lack  of  form  means  a  departure  from 
classical  tutelage,  it  is  a  characteristic  of  English  Literature. 

In  the  second  place,  lack  of  form  sometimes  means  lack  of 
obedience  to  authority,  or  tradition,  or  social  agreement. 
English  Literature  has  never  had  an  Academy,  rarely  even  a 
school,  hardly  an  estabhshed  technic,  never  a  ruling  criticism. 
It  has  not  obeyed  the  authority  of  the  classics;  it  has  not 
obeyed  anybody.  Critics  have  cried,  as  some  still  do,  for 
academies,  rules,  dogmatism,  authority;   but  Literature  has 


258  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

refused  to  be  led  by  the  nose.  The  leviathan  has  declined  the 
hook.  English  Literature  has  in  consequence  lacked  urbanity, 
regularity,  moderation,  the  virtues  that  come  from  a  general 
agreement  or  a  yielding  to  authority.  French  prose,  with 
its  clarity  and  decorum,  is  an  example  of  what  social  agree- 
ment can  accomplish  in  literary  form.  English  prose  has  too 
often  exhibited  the  sins  fathered  by  anarchy  and  dissent. 
Our  great  writers,  those  who  survive  and  affect  our  lives, 
have  violated  almost  every  precept  of  literary  law  and  order, 
and  displayed  eccentricity,  bad  taste,  and  even  unintelli- 
gibility.  No  wonder  our  criticism  has  been  mainly  concerned 
in  telling  how  much  better  they  do  things  in  France.  Yet 
in  spite  of  this  independence  of  dictation,  English  Literature 
has  often  been  imitative  enough ;  it  has  clung  to  its  precedents 
and  traditions;  it  has  been  characteristically  slow  to  change; 
but  it  has  never  reUnquished  its  right  to  liberty.  So  soon  as 
there  has  been  any  sign  of  a  consensus  of  opinion  as  to  what 
Literature  is  or  should  be,  English  Literature  has  then  be- 
come something  else.  An  unwiUingness  to  accept  any  stan- 
dards has  been  one  salient  characteristic  of  its  growth. 

In  the  third  place.  Form  or  Art  may  be  viewed  as  something 
opposed  to  fact,  to  actuality,  to  life.  Evidently  there  is 
need  in  Literature  for  both  fact  and  fancy,  actuality  and  art, 
truth  and  beauty;  but  there  is  a  tendency  to  insist  on  Art  as 
the  essential.  This  tendency  has  usually  resulted  in  limiting 
in  some  way  the  interpretation  of  life,  in  restricting  the  choice 
and  treatment  of  subjects,  in  placing  some  refinement  or 
abstraction  of  life  as  the  goal  of  Literature.  We  have  ob- 
served that  English  Literature  has  been  hostile  to  all  rules 
and  restrictions.  Further,  to  put  the  case  boldly,  it  has  been 
skeptical  as  to  the  possibility  of  making  its  imitation  of  life 
an  Art.  It  has  seen  the  incongruity,  the  precipitousness, 
the  confusion,  the  eternal  changeableness  of  life,  and  it  has 
not  readily  believed  that  an  imitation  of  these  should  observe 
any  law  or  order. 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  259 

We  have  had  great  artists,  but  they  have  rarely  given  a 
single-hearted  devotion  to  their  goddess.  They  have  also 
worshipped  some  cause,  some  truth,  or  some  fact.  They  have 
frankly  tired  of  Art,  as  they  knew  her,  and,  like  Dryden, 
voted  to  please  themselves.  Or,  like  Wordsworth,  they  have 
created  an  Art  of  their  own,  and  then  disregarded  it.  We 
have  not  produced  artists  as  Sophocles  and  Horace,  or  as 
Racine  and  Flaubert  were  artists.  Enghsh  Literature  has 
been  suspicious  of  any  guide  imposed  upon  its  explanation  of 
experience ;  and  it  has  come  to  no  acceptance  of  any  abstrac- 
tion, refinement,  or  generalization  of  life,  call  it  what  you 
will:  Beauty,  or  Nature,  or  Form,  or  Art,  or  Realism.  It 
has  been  devoted  to  an  extension  of  Art,  but  not  to  its  refine- 
ment; to  its  popularization,  but  not  to  its  perfection. 

So  much  for  what  English  Literature  has  lacked  in  art, 
or  in  certain  kinds  of  art.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that 
Literature  is  the  only  one  of  the  fine  arts  in  which  the  English 
people  have  greatly  excelled.  It  is  the  one  kind  of  artistic 
effort  which  has  greatly  attracted  them  and  in  which  they 
have  originated  and  maintained  a  national  tradition.  As  I 
have  hinted,  the  deficiencies  and  failures  that  we  have 
been  noticing  are  the  negative  sides  of  positive  accomplish- 
ments. 

If  English  Literature  has  not  been  classical  in  form  any 
more  than  in  content,  if  it  has  not  been  distinguished  by  the 
virtues  of  simplicity,  dignity,  and  sanity;  it  has  neverthe- 
less had  its  own  trinity  of  graces,  —  variety,  novelty,  and 
abundance.  Beauty  for  it  has  been  something  rich  and 
strange,  varied  and  startling.  It  has  not  loved  moderation, 
but  aspiration;  not  harmony,  but  picturesqueness;  not 
sanity  or  even  unity,  but  it  has  ransacked  every  clime  and 
every  creed  for  some  form  and  expression  for  the  two  irrec- 
oncilable opposites,  which  it  is  the  function  of  Literature 
to  unite  —  the  world  of  experience  and  the  world  of  vision. 
If  English  Literature  again  has  disdained  authority,  and  has 


260  ENGLISH   LITERATURE 

lacked  urbanity,  and  self-criticism,  and  deference  to  a  social 
consensus,  it  has  welcomed  experiment  and  innovation  and 
has  triumphed  through  its  individual  variations.  Take,  for 
example,  the  matter  of  poetic  style.  Only  for  a  few  barren 
years  in  the  eighteenth  century  has  there  been  any  general 
agreement  as  to  the  requisites  of  poetical  diction;  and  that 
agreement  rested  on  the  absurdity  that  everything  which 
Shakspere  had  done  was  wrong.  Well,  the  power  and  glory 
of  Shakspere's  style  lie  in  no  inconsiderable  measure  in  his 
unrestrained  use  of  figures  of  speech.  And  how  over-inge- 
nious, far-fetched,  mixed,  and  absurd  they  sometimes  are! 
And  yet  how  amazingly  abundant  and  beautiful !  How  they 
create  associations  and  resemblances,  how  they  bind  the 
world  together  in  our  minds,  how  they  sally  forth  and  cap- 
ture new  figures,  how  they  translate  the  things  of  every  day 
into  faery  land  or  the  affair  of  a  moment  into  the  sweep  of 
destiny!  Theirs  is  a  beauty  which  bows  to  no  authority  or 
decorum,  it  is  the  beauty  of  adventure  and  discovery,  of 
motion  and  change,  of  the  fast  mail  and  the  aeroplane.  Again, 
if  English  Literature  has  not  suffered  itself  to  be  abstracted 
from  life  and  fact  and  moral  values,  it  has,  in  its  effort  for  an 
enlargement  of  its  subject-matter,  sought  also  for  an  accom- 
panying variety  and  experimentation  in  expression.  It  has 
sought  for  forms  that  would  reveal  the  fullness  of  hfe,  for  an 
art  that  would  have  power  to  affect  men's  conduct.  And  in 
nearly  every  kind  and  form  of  Literature  there  has  been  both 
high  and  varied  achievement.  In  lyric  poetry,  for  example, 
we  have  given  new  splendor  to  foreign  forms  hke  the  ode,  the 
elegy,  and  the  sonnet,  we  have  made  the  most  of  suggestions 
from  our  ballads  and  folk-songs,  and  we  have  created  a  new 
realm  of  melody  and  beauty  in  the  poems  of  Shelley  and 
Keats.  Our  Literature  has  indeed  been  extraordinarily  fertile 
in  its  creation  of  new  art-forms.  I  have  mentioned  the  Shak- 
sperean  drama,  the  novels  of  Richardson  and  Fielding,  the 
historical  romances  of  Scott,  and  these  are  only  the  striking 


ENGLISH   LITERATURE  261 

successes  of  an  art  that  has  always  been  at  its  best  in  innova- 
tion and  invention. 

If  the  Enghsh  people  have  not  greatly  excelled  in  music, 
painting,  or  sculpture,  it  is  perhaps  partly  because  these 
arts  have  seemed  to  them  too  abstracted  from  life,  too  un- 
practical. At  all  events,  they  have  tended  to  regard  Litera- 
ture as  a  practical  art.  They  have  not  been  much  concerned 
with  it  as  a  profession,  a  technic,  or  an  abstraction  from  life; 
but  they  have  always  been  intensely  interested  in  its  sub- 
stance, in  its  revelation  and  criticism  of  life  and  conduct,  for 
that  is  what  the  substance  of  Literature  has  meant  to  them 
in  the  long  run.  Moral  purpose  {i.e.  what  seemed  to  the  ^ 
authors  moral)  has  influenced  nearly  all  of  our  writing,  and 
the  bearing  of  a  book  upon  conduct  has  been  a  large  part  of 
its  attraction  for  most  readers.  The  Moral,  indeed,  has 
been  too  much  with  us.  It  has  colored  our  metaphors  and 
phrases,  subdued  our  fancy,  intruded  where  it  did  not  belong, 
as  into  the  "  Faery  Queen"  and  "  Christabel,"  and  too  often 
led  to  didacticism  and  sermonizing.  And  its  excess  is  the 
token  of  an  essential  trait.  English  Literature  has  never  ^^' 
been  able  to  escape  moral  values  or  to  imagine  a  moral  world 
separated  from  actuality.  It  has  never  been  able  to  fancy 
itself  in  some  superior  sphere  whence  it  could  look  down  upon 
this  mundane  tangle  with  disinterested  languor.  Milton, 
the  greatest  of  our  artists,  in  the  sense  in  which  I  have  been 
using  the  word,  chose  for  his  subject  "  The  Fall  of  Man,"  and 
all  the  theology  attached  thereto,  because  this  seemed  to  him 
the  most  vital  and  moral  subject  conceivable.  It  was  Puri- 
tanism which  he  sought  to  translate  into  sublime  music.  Two 
centuries  later  another  English  artist  chose  for  his  theme  one 
which  Milton  rejected,  because  he  saw  an  opportunity  to 
sentimentalize  and  moralize  the  stories  of  King  Arthur  into 
a  practical  ethical  commentary  on  the  life  of  his  own  day. 
Keats  is  the  only  one  of  our  great  poets  who  saw  the  world 
unclouded  by  questions  of  conduct;  and  if  he  had  lived  a  few 


262  ENGLISH   LITERATURE 

years  longer  he  would  have  been  a  moralist.  The  very  criti- 
cism of  one  age  on  another  has  usually  been  ethical.  Dr. 
Johnson  found  Shakspere  insufficiently  moral;  and  Coleridge 
found  Dr.  Johnson  and  his  age  sadly  lacking  in  pure  morahty; 
and  Coleridge  has  since  come  in  for  his  full  share  of  moral 
judgments.  Classicism  and  Romanticism  for  us  have  meant 
moral  principles  and  interpretations;  our  Battle  of  the 
Books  is  ever  a  struggle  over  conduct,  a  conflict  of  sweetness 
and  light  against  the  powers  of  darkness.  And  if  Ethics 
has  maintained  a  jealous  guardianship  over  Art,  she  has  also 
been  a  helping  handmaid.  It  was  when  the  Bible  had  come 
to  be  regarded  as  a  sovereign  guide  in  practical  conduct  that 
we  made  it  our  own  as  Literature.  It  remains  the  greatest 
monument  of  our  prose  and  our  most  amazing  display  of  sheer 
literary  genius. 

The  English  critic  who  has  thought  most  closely  over  the 
questions  which  we  are  discussing,  though  he  was  prone  to 
hold  up  French  example  to  his  countrymen  and  to  insist  on 
the  unapproachable  excellence  of  the  classical  models,  was  yet 
too  thorough-going  an  Englishman  to  admit  any  interest  in 
Literature  higher  than  the  interest  in  conduct.  Matthew 
Arnold  found  the  essential  of  Literature  to  be  a  moral  criti- 
cism of  life.  And  that  probably  comes  as  near  as  any  other 
definition  to  expressing  the  meaning  of  English  Literature  to 
Englishmen. 

This  moral  criticism  of  life  has  been  more  than  an  ethics, 
it  has  been  a  philosophy  and  a  religion.  The  English  people 
have  not  been  system-makers  any  more  than  they  have  been 
sculptors  or  musicians.  They  have  not  devoted  themselves 
to  philosophy  or  to  the  fine  arts  with  full-hearted  allegiance. 
They  have  preferred  a  halfway  ground,  the  bridge  which 
Literature  provides  from  the  real  to  the  abstract,  from  pure 
reason  to  experience.  The  powers  which  they  have  reserved 
from  the  fine  arts  and  metaphysics  seem  to  have  sought 
refuge  in  Literature.     There  the  individual  has  been  left  to 


ENGLISH   LITERATURE  263 

work  out  his  own  salvation.  And  though  his  search  for  an 
explanation  and  reconciliation  of  life  may  have  reached  no 
goal,  whether  in  theory  or  religion,  the  history  of  his  solitary 
struggle  has  often  made  itself  into  poetry.  Our  Literature 
has  ever  been  seeking  truth  in  her  hiding-places  and  calling 
upon  men  to  worship  at  strange  shrines.  It  has  found  in  the 
escapades  of  "Tom  Jones"  a  system  of  ethics;  in  the  land- 
scape about  Tintern  Abbey  the  revelation  of  a  deity 

"  Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns  " 

and  from  the  wild  stories  of  Hamlet,  Macbeth,  and  Lear,  it  has 
made  its  symbols  of  eternal  moral  conflict  and  victory.  It  has 
been  the  lever  which  the  individual  has  pressed  against  the  im- 
movable world  in  undaunted  confidence  that  the  world  can 
be  moved.  It  has  refused  to  accept  this  life  as  fixed,  static, 
adjudicated.  It  has  viewed  life  as  a  struggle,  a  journey,  a 
progress.  It  has  ever  been  proclaiming  new  gospels  and 
propaganda;  constructing  bridges  across  philosophical 
chasms,  preparing  new  guides  and  new  faiths.  Futile  enough 
these  may  seem  in  the  retrospect,  broken  bridges,  crumbling 
towers,  and  vanished  faiths;  but  our  way  has  led  over  these 
bridges,  and  has  been  lighted  by  these  beacons,  and  sum- 
moned by  these  visions.  The  EngUsh  race  would  be  poorer 
indeed  had  not  its  Literature  so  constantly  sought  to  advance 
from  the  confusion  of  fact  to  the  assurance  of  faith. 

Our  insistence  on  conduct  first  and  art  second,  our  negli- 
gence in  regard  to  standards  and  definitions,  our  unwilling- 
ness to  accept  direction  or  to  come  to  a  common  agreement, 
our  eagerness  to  crowd  our  vessels  with  precious  freight 
before  we  have  assured  ourselves  of  their  structural  stability 
—  all  these  national  characteristics  have  unquestionably  re- 
sulted in  prodigious  waste.  Not  merely  the  waste  that 
must  always  come  from  mediocre  and  barren  effort,  but  the 
waste  of  intellectual  and  imaginative  greatness  struggling 
without  safe  guidance;   the  waste  that  arises  from  refusal  to 


264  ENGLISH   LITERATURE 

submit  to  discipline,  to  learn  the  result  of  past  experiment  and 
success,  to  control  both  ideas  and  form  by  reference  to  a 
common  basis  of  social  agreement,  and  to  preface  imaginative 
expression  with  intellectual  culture.  Much  of  our  most 
splendid  verse  has  lost  its  appeal  because  the  poets  dedicated 
themselves  to  ethical  or  theological  propaganda,  soon  to  be 
discarded  as  outworn  or  absurd.  We  need  recall  only  Spen- 
ser's ethics,  Milton's  theology,  Pope's  deism,  and  Shelley's 
Godwinism,  With  the  expansion  of  interests  due  to  modern 
life,  our  Literature  has  wandered  uncontrolled  in  many  paths 
that  lead  nowhere,  least  of  all  to  grandeur  and  permanence 
of  achievement. 

All  this  waste  and  expense  of  spirit  is  most  manifest  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  Tennyson,  devoting  poetry  to  feeble 
compromises  between  old  religion  and  a  new  society;  Arnold, 
deserting  the  muse  of  his  "  Scholar  Gypsy  "  to  write  "  Saint 
Paul  and  Protestantism  " ;  Browning  persisting  in  eccentricity; 
Carlyle  and  Ruskin  disdaining  all  discipline;  Dickens  prosti- 
tuting his  marvelous  power  of  invention  to  the  worst  tastes 
of  his  public ;  George  Eliot  spoiling  novels  in  order  to  make 
ethical  treatises;  George  Meredith,  distracting  his  superb 
genius  in  about  all  of  these  ways  and  some  others ;  —  surely, 
no  other  national  literature  in  this  period  has  brought  to 
its  service  so  much  of  intellectual  and  imaginative  genius; 
and  yet  how  comparatively  little  survives  that  is  surely  a 
thing  of  beauty  for  the  ages.  How  much  we  seem  to  have 
needed  a  standard  of  perfection  and  an  agreement  as  to  the 
goals  of  literary  endeavor. 

But,  as  has  been  already  hinted,  this  waste  has  its  compen- 
sations, or  even  its  justification.  The  very  conditions  of 
individualism  and  popularization  which  have  been  respon- 
sible for  this  confusion  and  uncertainty  of  effort  have  been 
the  attractions  that  have  summoned  genius  to  Literature. 
Let  us  balance  the  account  of  waste  and  profit  in  an  individual 
example,  Lord  Byron. 


ENGLISH   LITERATURE  265 

For  two  generations  past,  criticism  has  been  indicating 
the  faults  of  his  poetry:  its  carelessness  and  even  sloven- 
liness in  execution,  its  lack  of  profound  thought,  its  departures 
from  our  accepted  standards  of  morality.  Clearly  he  cuts 
but  a  poor  figure  beside  a  painstaking  artist  like  Horace 
or  an  artist  and  thinker  like  Goethe.  Criticism  has  been 
inclined  to  pronounce  him  a  bad  man  and  a  bad  poet.  But 
all  Europe  has  read  him,  and  surely  English-speaking  people 
will  long  continue  to  read  him.  Why?  Because,  in  spite  of 
some  sentimentality  and  insincerity,  his  poems  give  a  tre- 
mendous revelation  of  a  man  and  his  adversaries.  For 
Byron  was  fighting  alone  against  everybody,  not  only  Bob 
Southey,  and  the  bhnd,  mad,  old  King,  and  Castlereagh  and 
the  Holy  Alliance;  but  also  against  the  shams,  hypocrisies, 
artificialities,  and  tyrannies  of  European  society,  and  against 
the  religion,  faith,  and  even  the  idealisms  and  philosophies 
of  his  day.  He  said  no  final  word  about  anything,  and  very 
few  wholly  true  words,  but  he  wrote  eloquent,  powerful,  and 
effective  poetry,  crowded  with  life  and  struggle  and  his  per- 
sonal vitality.  Genius  was  in  many  ways  wasting  its  efforts, 
yet  creating  a  fresh,  memorable,  and  irresistibly  interesting 
criticism  of  fife,  and  in  that  great  satire  "Don  Juan"  a  new 
and  amazing  form  of  poetry.  And  Byron's  case  is  typical 
rather  than  unique.  ^English  Literature  has  attracted  great 
men  who,  having  forced  themselves  into  conflict  with  their 
environments,  have  found  victory  only  when  their  individual 
struggles  have  led  to  imaginative  expression  —  an  expression 
that  must  have  its  trials  and  experiments,  and  succeed  not 
by  adherence  to  old  models  but  only  through  the  discovery 
of  new.  Is  this  not  in  some  measure  true  of  Marlowe,  and 
Wordsworth,  and  Fielding,  and  Swift,  and  even  of  Milton? 

Let  us  take  another  example,  this  time  of  a  period  and  a 
class  of  popular  Literature,  the  Elizabethan  drama.  There, 
in  defiance  of  rules,  models,  and  critics.  Literature  found  its 


266  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

shrines  in  a  few  crude  playhouses  that  entertained  a  brutal 
and  almost  illiterate  populace.  Thither  came  young  poets 
eager  to  create  beautiful  and  sonorous  phrases,  but  eager 
also  to  please  the  crowd  and  to  record  something  of  the  ex- 
citement and  action  with  which  they  knew,  from  both  story 
and  experience,  that  life  was  filled.  A  great  number  of 
plays  resulted,  very  few  of  which  are  free  from  vulgarity, 
inconsistencies,  bad  taste,  and  sensationalism;  hardly  one  of 
which  is  free  from  manifest  and  distressful  faults  that  de- 
tract from  the  consummation  of  a  consistent  and  unified  pur- 
pose. Yet  the  conditions  which  made  inevitable  this  extrava- 
gant expense  of  talent  aroused  the  ambition  of  the  supreme 
genius.  Even  without  Shakspere  the  product  of  those  condi- 
tions is  still  splendid  and  appealing  after  these  centuries.  For 
its  faults  and  its  excellences  are  similar  to  his.  Even  his 
greatest  plays  are  by  no  means  as  symmetrical  or  harmo- 
nious or  dignified  as  those  of  Racine  or  Sophocles.  And, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  phrases  that  have  so  often  been  used 
to  sum  up  the  effect  of  Shakspere  upon  the  civiUzed  world, 
and  that  have  become  almost  dedicated  to  his  memory, 
these  phrases,  had  he  never  lived,  would  have  found  service 
in  expressing  our  debt  to  those  who  prepared  his  way.  For 
they  too  have  renewed  their  power  and  charm  through  the 
years  by  means  of  their  wealth  of  life,  their  revelation  of 
man's  motives,  their  idealization  of  his  mirth  and  grief  and 
passionate  conflict;  by  their  incidental  wisdom,  and  their 
bursts  of  superbly  beautiful  and  suggestive  poetry.  "  Out  of 
the  struggle  and  waste  of  their  free  individual  efforts  to  please 
the  public,  there  came  a  new  Literature,  a  new  kind  of  drama 
which  wears  the  scars  received  in  its  endeavor  to  excite  and 
horrify  and  amuse,  but  which  in  its  great  master  has  been  for 
the  Enghsh  race  a  literature  and  a  philosophy  and  almost  a 
religion. 

These   examples   suggest   how   completely   the   wasteful- 
ness of  English  Literature  has  been  justified  by  its  leaders 


ENGLISH   LITERATURE  267 

and  its  masterpieces.  Still  further,  they  bear  witness  that 
its  encouragement  of  unrestrained,  manifold  and  waste- 
ful individual  effort,  and  its  uncritical  and  popular  eager- 
ness for  new  subjects  and  new  forms,  have  triumphed  in  the 
wealth  of  experience  that  Literature  has  thereby  brought 
under  its  transforming  power.  *It  has  mirrored  life  from 
many  ethical  angles,  refracted  through  many  creeds  and  phi- 
losophies, and  through  many  commanding  personalities;  but 
its  great  victory  is  the  fullness  of  life  which  it  has  imitated, 
the  vast  and  ever-widening  range  of  experience  which  it  has 
opened  to  our  imagination  and  reflection. 

Here  surely  is  God's  plenty,  an  abundance  so  varied  that 
it  baffles  description  and  specification.  We  might  dwell 
upon  the  observation,  appreciation,  and  worship  which  our 
Literature  has  given  to  external  nature.  The  world  of 
mountain,  forest,  and  cloud  has  been  the  source  of  our  imagery, 
the  key  to  our  emotions,  our  very  standard  of  beauty.  But 
to  dwell  on  the  treatment  of  nature  is  to  be  reminded  of  that 
other  world  of  cities  and  crowds,  of  Chaucer's  pilgrims,  Ben 
Jonson's  gulls,  Kipling's  soldiers,  and  Mark  Twain's  river 
folk.  The  past  century,  which  has  meditated  with  Words- 
worth at  Tintern  Abbey,  has  also  feasted  with  Burns  among 
the  Jolly  Beggars.  "Our  Literature  has  indeed  been  loath  to 
depart  far  from  actuaUty.  it  has  frequented  the  busy  haunts 
of  men;  it  has  delighted  in  the  incongruities  and  absurdities 
of  their  daily  living;  it  has  mingled  its  beggars  and  clowns 
with  its  kings  and  seers;  it  has  faced  the  miseries  and  trivi- 
alities of  existence.  But  if  we  are  tempted  to  dwell  on  its 
realism,  we  are  reminded  of  the  romance  which  it  has  found  in 
London  streets  and  in  the  Heart  of  Midlothian,  as  well  as 
in  distant  lands  and  past  ages,  and  of  the  mysticism  with 
which  it  has  glorified  hut  and  palace,  sunset  and  the  mind  of 
man.  It  is  useless  to  analyze.  "  The  Essays  of  Elia,"  "  Don 
Juan,"  "  The  Heart  of  Midlothian,"  and  "  Epipsychidion  "  were 
written  within  a  few  years  of  one  another.     Thackeray  wrote 


268  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

both  "  Vanity  Fair,"  and  "  Henry  Esmond."  A  new  gospel  of 
nature,  a  keen  analysis  of  human  motives,  a  comedy  of  follies, 
and  an  idealistic  philosophy  —  all  in  richest  measure  —  are 
to  be  found  in  the  novels  and  poems  of  George  Meredith. 
Falstaff,  Ariel,  Rosalind,  and  Lear  inhabit  one  room  in  the 
imagination  of  each  of  us.  X)ther  Hteratures  may  perhaps 
have  attained  a  finer  art,  or  a  greater  surety  and  precision  in 
their  criticism  of  hfe  than  ours,  but  none  has  equaled  it  in 
the  abundance,  variety,  and  comprehensiveness  of  the  Hfe 
which  it  attempts  to  interpret. 

There  is,  moreover,  another  achievement  of  English  Litera- 
ture which  may  justify  its  methods.  '*'As  it  has  divided 
and  scattered  its  efforts,  as  it  has  been  unorganized,  undi- 
rected, popular,  journalistic,  democratic,  individual,  it  has 
had  all  the  freer  opportunity  to  know  the  shifting  and  com- 
plex trends  of  national  life,  and  to  awaken  that  life  to  the 
more  inomediate  and  imperious  calls  of  reason,  imagination, 
or  spirit.  *No  other  national  Literature,  through  a  long 
period,  in  times  both  of  intellectual  advance  and  hesitation, 
of  both  emotional  stir  and  quiescence,  has  so  intimately  con- 
cerned itself  with  national  morals,  and  so  constantly  influ- 
enced the  main  currents  of  national  activity.  And  this 
function  of  social  service  has  been  increasing  in  importance. 
In  the  Victorian  era,  which  we  have  foimd  so  neglectful  of 
literary  standards.  Literature  has  been  of  greater  social  and 
ethical  stimulus  than  ever  before.  This  era  inherited  the 
Uterary  traditions  of  the  preceding  epoch  of  Wordsworth  and 
Keats,  but  it  also  confronted  great  changes  in  ways  of  think- 
ing, and  the  great  change  of  the  industrial  revolution  that 
created  the  new  existence  of  factories,  railways,  huge  indus- 
tries, and  crowded  cities  in  which  we  still  live.  From  this 
new  existence  our  Literature  could  not  hold  aloof.  It  throbs 
with  a  new  sympathy  for  those  who  toil  unceasingly  in  poverty, 
and  a  new  bewilderment  upon  the  realization  that  the  world 
which  is  changing  so  rapidly  is  still  so  full  of  misery  and  hope- 


ENGLISH   LITERATURE  269 

lessness.  Without  the  industrial  revolution,  Carlyle,  Ruskin, 
Dickens,  Newman,  George  Eliot,  William  Morris,  Matthew- 
Arnold,  might  have  written  greater  Literature,  or  they  might 
not  have  written  at  all.  But,  as  the  world  went,  the  main 
impulse  and  the  main  characteristic  of  Victorian  Literature 
became  this  great  sense  of  pity  for  things  as  they  are  and  of 
an  imperious  duty  to  make  them  better. 

If  in  the  future  our  Literature  is  even  more  unwilhng  than 
in  the  past  to  confine  itself  to  the  interpretation  of  a  hmited 
and  accepted  portion  of  experience  into  an  enduring  form, 
shall  we  not  find  a  consolation  and  recompense  in  the  promise 
that  the  continued  multiplication  and  enlargement  of  its 
purposes  will  result  in  a  more  immediate,  more  lively,  and 
more  effective  social  service?  Even  in  these  United  States, 
in  our  own  day,  when  we  are  bemoaning  the  lack  of  dignity 
in  our  Art,  is  not  this  tradition  of  service  becoming  a  most 
vital,  a  most  fertile,  a  most  promising  fact?  Is  it  not  felt 
in  our  books,  our  plays,  our  magazines,  our  newspapers? 
May  it  not  again  prove  the  summons  that  will  call  genius  to 
Literature? 

Here,  at  all  events,  there  is  already  instituted  a  new  devel- 
opment of  English  Literature.  Looking  backward,  it  is 
natural  to  make  American  Literature  a  part  of  English  Litera- 
ture, as  I  have  not  hesitated  to  do  in  this  lecture;  but,  look- 
ing forward,  it  is  clear  that  the  national  division  must  con- 
tinue, for  wherever  there  is  a  real  national  life  its  expression 
must  differ  from  that  of  its  neighbors.  The  great  stream  of 
English  Literature,  though  it  continue  to  represent  the  same 
language,  race,  and  traditions,  must  henceforth  run  in  separate 
channels.  It  is  no  longer  the  Literature  of  one  nation,  but 
the  Literature  of  the  English  nations  and  peoples.  In 
America,  however,  we  have  not  forgotten  our  ancestry.  We 
brought  Shakspere  and  the  English  Bible  to  Virginia  and 
Plymouth,  and  English  Literature  has  continued  the  bulwark 
of  our  education.     It  is  no  small  matter  that  we  teach  its 


270  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

masterpieces  in  all  our  schools.  Thereby  we  have  made  it 
the  doorway  of  our  institutions.  Through  it  every  aUen 
child  enters  into  the  inheritance  of  our  manners,  our  hopes, 
and  our  ideals.  We  are  gathering  other  traditions,  making 
new  experiments,  and  beginning  traditions  of  our  own;  but 
we  shall  not  prove  recreant  to  our  great  heritage.  Our  Liter- 
ature, like  that  of  the  mother  land,  will  remain  free  from  any 
domination  or  limitation  of  criticism  or  caste.  It  will  arrive 
at  a  united  purpose,  a  national  promise  and  ideal,  but  only 
through  an  entire  freedom  of  individual  initiative  and  experi- 
ment. It  is  already  moral  and  social  in  its  aims,  intent  to 
reflect  the  fullness  of  life,  devoted  to  the  democratization  of 
art,  and  sustained  by  one  trait  which  the  older  nations  seem 
to  be  losing,  an  indomitable  optimism.  We  have  kindled 
our  torch  at  the  altars  of  English  Literature,  and  we  shall  bear 
it  far  and  wide  as  our  experience  broadens.  In  its  light  we 
shall  examine  men  and  their  surroundings,  and  we  shall  de- 
clare, "  Here  is  the  world  as  we  see  it."  And,  in  that  spirit  of 
reform,  which  we  believe  is  the  fountain  of  eternal  youth, 
we  shall  add,  "And  here  are  ways  to  make  the  world  better." 
I  have  now  examined  some  of  the  manifestations  of  the 
literary  principle  among  the  English  people.  In  Athens 
that  principle  propagated  among  a  genuine  aristocracy  dis- 
tinguished by  a  highly  developed  culture,  and  it  reflected  a 
restricted  tradition  and  a  simplified  and  rationalized  life. 
Since  that  time  it  has  never  found  an  environment  so  finely 
adapted  to  its  perfect  development.  It  has  traveled  far, 
and  often  has  lodged  in  unfriendly  places,  but  it  has  not 
lost  its  vitality.  This  spirit  of  Literature,  which  is  created 
of  sympathy  and  imagination,  which  is  forever  working  to 
reflect,  interpret,  and  transform  experience,  which  must  for- 
ever create  and  propagate  so  long  as  man's  mind  is  not  a  clod, 
has  now  for  thirteen  centuries  been  thriving  and  multiplying 
among  English  people.  Nowhere  else,  even  among  modem 
nations,  has  it  been  diffused  more  widely  among  the  people; 


ENGLISH   LITERATURE  271 

nor  has  it  elsewhere  loaded  itself  with  more  burdensome 
duties.  It  has  resulted  in  a  Literature,  neglectful  of  a  basis 
of  criticism,  culture,  or  social  agreement;  a  Literature,  which, 
through  the  freedom  it  offered  to  individual  expression,  has 
attracted  genius  and  constantly  gathered  to  itself  new  subjects 
and  new  forms,  and  widened  the  range  of  ideas  and  emotions 
with  which  it  deals.  The  main  outlet  for  the  nation's  artistic 
aspirations,  it  has  also  laden  itself  with  the  duties  of  phi- 
losophy, religion,  and  practical  ethics;  but  if  it  has  lost  thereby 
as  a  fine  art,  it  has  gained  as  an  efficient  servant  of  society  and 
as  a  leavener  of  the  national  life.  Art  with  us  has  been 
harnessed  in  service.  Apollo  has  been  in  toil  for  Admetus. 
Heavy  have  been  his  burdens,  strange  his  yoke-fellows,  varied 
and  ever  multiplying  have  been  his  tasks.  But  if  the  god  has 
been  hidden,  life  has  been  illuminated. 

"  God,  of  whom  music 
And  song  and  blood  are  pure, 
The  day  was  never  darkened 
That  had  Thee  here  obscure  ! " 

In  a  day  like  ours,  when  we  are  wont  to  turn  to  the  bacteri- 
ologist for  guidance  and  philosophy,  the  claims  of  Literature 
to  preserve  the  nation's  health  and  to  direct  her  future,  may 
seem  less  convincing  than  they  did  to  Spenser,  and  Milton, 
and  Wordsworth,  and  Browning,  and  Emerson.  Or,  if  we 
survey  other  of  the  great  achievements  of  the  English  people, 
their  creation  of  free  political  institutions,  their  system  of 
law,  their  building  of  this  great  democracy,  their  accomplish- 
ments in  trade,  invention,  and  science,  we  shall  not  be  in- 
clined to  claim  for  Literature  too  great  a  part  in  the  advance 
of  our  civilization.  But  let  us  render  to  Phoebus  Apollo  his 
due.  In  all  this  advance  of  the  English  people,  the  bright  god 
has  been  a  present  helper.  He  has  been  the  companion  of 
her  sons,  and  their  labors  have  quickened  to  his  music.  In 
every  generation  Literature  has  presented  much  of  the  best 


272  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

that  has  been  known  or  thought,  and  it  has  united,  as  has 
no  other  endeavor,  the  imagination  and  the  intellectual 
genius  of  this  vast  people.  It  has  guarded  the  past,  and 
handed  down  her  glories  and  lessons  to  the  present,  ^t  has 
been  the  voice  of  prophets  descrying  the  future  and  caUing 
men  to  her  allurements.  It  has  helped  to  make  the  idealisms 
of  its  visionaries  the  practices  of  their  children.  Who  shall 
measure  the  boundaries  or  predict  the  conquests  of  its  mag- 
nificent empire  over  the  minds  and  hearts  of  mankind  ? 


XIV 

FRENCH   LITERATURE 

By  Adolphe  Cohn,  Professor  of  the  Romance 
Languages  and  Literatures 

The  claim  to  distinction  of  a  national  literature  may 
rest  upon  the  highest  degree  of  excellence  in  a  special  line  or 
upon  excellence  of  a  high  degree  in  a  number  of  branches; 
and  again  it  may  lie  in  the  presence  in  all  sorts  of  produc- 
tions of  a  quality  which  seems  to  be  the  special  possession 
of  that  literature. 

In  regard  to  French  Literature  it  may  hardly  be  disputed 
that  its  special  characteristics  are,  first,  the  variety  of  fields 
in  which  it  has  produced  works  of  lasting  value  rather  than 
the  commanding  eminence  of  a  few  monuments  of  literary 
genius.  A  French  counterpart  of  the  "Divina  Commedia," 
or  of  "  Faust,"  it  would  be  idle  to  look  for.  But  survey  as  you 
will  the  whole  domain  of  Literature  and  it  will  be  hard  to 
discover  in  it  any  spot  not  marked  by  the  production  of 
some  French  work  which  has  remained  a  portion  of  mankind's 
literary  heritage.  Poetry  in  all  its  forms,  even  the  epic, 
witness  the  wonderful  epic  production  of  the  Middle  Ages; 
drama,  romance,  history,  memoirs,  letters,  ethics,  philosophy, 
science,  —  in  short,  whatever  man  may  have  to  say  to  his 
fellow-man  has  been  at  some  time  expressed  by  some  French- 
man in  a  form  upon  which  it  has  seemed  difl&cult  if  not  im- 
possible to  improve. 

Then,  if,  instead  of  surveying  the  outward  appearance  of 
the  literary  domain,  we  choose  to  look  below  the  surface  and 
T  273 


274  FRENCH   LITERATURE 

to  discover  what  is  the  chief  and  most  generally  diffused 
quality  present  in  the  works  of  French  writers,  it  is  not  diflS- 
cult  to  find  that  the  chief  merits  by  which  they  are  distin- 
guished is  the  presence  in  them  of  a  quality  which  may  be 
called  essentially  national,  viz.  clearness.  More  than  a  cen- 
tury has  elapsed  since  Rivarol  wrote  "that  which  is  not 
clear  is  not  French;"  and  few  sayings  have  had  the  good 
fortune  of  being  repeated  oftener  than  this  pronouncement 
of  the  most  celebrated  of  the  panegyrists  of  the  French 
language. 

But  one  who  wishes  to  apprehend  the  real  spirit  of  French 
Literature  must  not  be  satisfied  with  that  altogether  too  easily 
made  discovery  of  the  quality  of  clearness  as  the  most 
generally  possessed  by  the  works  which  it  contains.  He  must 
go  deeper  and  discover  the  cause  of  the  phenomenon.  Nor  will 
this  be  a  very  difficult  task.  The  clearness  and  lucidity  of  the 
French  language  is  a  natural  consequence  of  the  logical  char- 
acter of  the  French  mind.  Man  invented  language  because 
he  felt  the  need  of  communicating  with  his  fellow-man. 
If  he  had  lived  alone,  language  would  never  have  been  created. 
If  the  desired  result  is  to  be  reached,  what  we  say  has  to  be 
understood,  and  must  therefore  be,  above  all,  clearly  intelligible. 
Thence  the  first  duty  of  the  speaker  is  to  express  himself 
with  clearness.  A  writer  is  a  speaker;  he  does  not  write 
for  himself,  but  for  the  benefit  or  enjoyment  of  others;  he 
has  something  to  say  which  he  wishes  them  to  understand. 
Literature  is  a  conversation.  Thus  Descartes,  in  his  "Dis- 
cours  de  la  Methode  " :  "  I  know  that  the  reading  of  good  books 
is  like  a  conversation  with  the  best  people  of  bygone  ages." 
And  here  the  most  modern  and  subjective  of  the  great  poets 
of  France,  Alfred  de  Musset,  is  found  in  full  agreement  with 
the  seventeenth-century  philosopher.  When  trying  to  give 
us  his  reasons  for  loving  poetry  above  all  things  else,  he  tells 
us  that  he  loved  it  because  "  it  is  intelligible  to  the  world, 
though  spoken  by  the  poet  alone." 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  275 

This  conception  of  language  as  a  device,  having  for  its 
object  to  make  the  intercourse  between  the  various  members 
of  the  human  race  easier,  conditioned  the  French  language 
not  only  in  the  formation  of  its  grammatical  and  syntactical 
constructions,  but  even  in  the  formation  of  its  pronunciation. 
Language  was  not  only  to  be  understood,  but  also  uttered 
with  as  little  difficulty  as  possible.  This  does  not  mean 
that  French  is  a  language  a  correct  pronunciation  of  which 
can  be  easily  acquired  by  foreigners,  whose  ear  and  organs 
of  speech  have  been  fashioned  by  some  other  scheme  of 
pronunciation,  but  that  it  does  not  require  any  strenuous 
physical  effort.  An  accumulation  of  consonants  without  the 
interposition  of  any  vowel  does  require  some  such  effort; 
therefore  such  accumulations  were  banished  from  the  language 
of  France.  A  curious  result  followed,  which  acted  upon  the 
very  essence  of  French  poetry,  viz.  the  creation  of  nasal 
syllables.  Originally  nasal  syllables  were  created  only 
when  the  nasal  consonant,  n  or  m,  was  followed  by  another 
consonant,  the  object  in  view  being  to  reduce  the  number  of 
consonants  separating  one  vowel  from  another.  The  utter- 
ance of  words  was  thereby  made  easier,  but  the  idiom  was 
deprived  of  one  of  the  most  musical  elements  of  language. 
Take  such  words  as  the  English  slumber,  the  Italian  cantar; 
such  a  line  as  this  suggestive  line  of  Heine's  in  German :  In 
Abendsonnenschein  ;  these  examples  will  suffice  to  show  what 
a  price  the  French  paid  for  the  acquisition  of  an  easily  uttered 
and  admirably  lucid  language. 

The  latent  preoccupations  which  thus  acted  upon  the 
modeling  of  the  idiom  itself,  already  explain  one  of  the  most 
striking  facts  that  appear  in  a  general  survey  of  French 
Literature,  the  absence  in  it  of  the  great  preponderance  of 
poetry  over  prose  which  may  be  noted  in  almost  all  the 
other  literatures  of  Europe.  But  the  effect  of  them  was  most 
marked  in  French  poetry  itself.  With  its  musical  element 
reduced  to  a  minimum,  and  made  for  a  group  of  hmnan  beings 


276  FRENCH   LITERATURE 

bent  upon  understanding  fully  every  word  which  was  told 
them,  it  could  not  have  for  its  object  to  lead  through  musical 
combinations  of  syllables  to  that  part  of  the  poet's  thoughts 
or  feelings  which  he  preferred  to  leave  untold,  and  to  suggest 
instead  of  expressing  it.  This  explains  the  failure  of  those 
poets  of  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  who,  like 
Emile  Verhaeren  and  other  men  of  undoubted  talent,  tried 
to  make  French  poetry  a  musically  suggestive  poetry  to  con- 
quer the  ear  of  the  general  public.  In  France  poetry  has  to  be 
as  clear  as  prose  itself,  and  unable  to  be  both  musical  and  clear, 
these  men  sacrificed  clearness  to  music  and  paid  the  penalty. 

In  French  Literature  the  line  that  divides  poetry  from  prose 
is  less  distinctly  marked  than  it  is  elsewhere.  While  the 
poet  is  not  absolved  from  the  necessity  of  uttering  his  thoughts 
and  feelings  in  absolutely  clear  language,  neither  is  the  prose 
writer  excused  from  pleasing  the  ear  as  well  as  satisfying 
the  mind.  Language  having  been  created  for  social  inter- 
course, any  one  that  uses  it  in  harsh  and  repelling  tones  acts 
against  its  very  purpose.  Boileau's  advice,  "Shun  the  odi- 
ous combination  of  unpleasant  sounds,"  is  surely  meant  for  the 
writer  of  prose  as  well  as  for  the  poet. 

This  conversational  character  of  Literature  appears  in  the 
very  form  of  a  number  of  the  masterpieces  of  French  Litera- 
ture, from  Montaigne's  "Essays"  down;  and  even  going 
farther  back  than  Montaigne,  as  that  in  which  the  poet  of 
the  medieval  "Chanson  de  Geste"  always  familiarily  ad- 
dressed his  audience.  Pascal  is  conversational  to  as  high  a 
degree  as  Montaigne.  He  is  so,  of  course,  in  the  "Pro- 
vincial Letters,"  but  no  less  in  his  "  Pens^es"  ;  no  mere 
communing  with  himself,  but  an  ardent  expostulation  with 
an  imaginary  guest  always  present  by  his  side,  and  whose 
soul  seems  in  imminent  peril  of  damnation. 

In  a  language  built  upon  such  lines  poetry  will  not  look  for 
the  exceptional,  or  rather  the  extraordinary  in  man,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  will  try  to  bring  forward  the  traits  that  bind 


FRENCH   LITERATURE  277 

all  men  together.  Lamartine  in  his  "  Bonaparte,"  speaking 
of  Napoleon,  exclaims,  "  Rien  d'humain  ne  battait  sous  son 
epaisse  armure,"  and  Hugo,  who  tried  to  bring  the  great  war- 
rior as  near  as  possible  to  the  great  herd  of  mankind,  wrote 
in  his  "Napoleon  II"  " Mais  les  cceurs  de  lions  sont  lesvrais 
coeurs  de  peres:  II  aimait  son  fils,  ce  vainqueur!"  It  was  not 
Lamartine,  but  Hugo,  who  was  here  to  be  accepted  by  the 
people  as  the  great  Napoleonic  poet.  Least  of  all  will 
be  loved  the  poet  who  writes  merely  for  himself.  The 
genuine  admiration  and  the  strenuous  exertions  of  all  the 
great  French  critics  have  not  been  able  to  make  Alfred  de 
Vigny  a  poet  dear  to  most  of  the  readers  of  French  verse. 
They  will,  in  spite  of  his  inferior  art,  turn  to  Beranger,  and 
with  his  old  sergeant  repeat,  for  instance,  a  line  summing 
up  in  a  few  words  the  tragic  condition  of  France,  when 
the  return  of  the  Bourbons  had  exiled  the  tricolor  of  the 
Revolution  and  reinstated  the  white  flag  of  the  old 
monarchy:  "  C'est  un  drapeau  que  je  ne  connais  pas!" 
And  while  the  regiment  passes  by,  with  drimas  beating,  the 
old  warrior  remains  motionless  on  his  beat,  lulling  his  grand- 
children to  sleep  with  tales  of  departed  and  forebodings  of 
returning  glory.  Even  in  poetry,  then,  which  usually  con- 
tains the  most  subjective  part  of  Literature,  the  French 
seem  to  enjoy,  and  therefore  to  produce,  only  what  is  common 
to  all  mankind.  The  saying  of  Montaigne,  that  "each  man 
has  in  him  an  exemplar  of  the  human  conditions,"  might 
serve  as  a  motto  for  the  whole  of  their  literary  production. 
Among  all  literary  forms  there  is  one  in  which  man  is  pre- 
sented more  completely  than  in  any  other,  viz.  the  drama. 
Elsewhere  man  has  to  be  suggested  by  the  writer  and  im- 
agined by  the  reader.  On  the  stage  he  is  seen,  almost  touched. 
He  moves  and  speaks.  That  a  Literature  which  has  for  its 
object  only  this  communication  between  man  and  man  by 
which  the  speaker  makes  himself,  his  dispositions,  his  desires, 
his  feelings,  his  needs,  better  understood  by  others,  should 


278  FRENCH  LITERATURE 

excel  in  this  typical  form  of  production  is  only  what  was 
to  be  expected.  The  most  striking  phenomenon  in  French 
Literature  is  the  uninterrupted  flow  of  its  dramatic  current 
from  Corneille's  "Cid"  down  to  the  present  day.  Compare 
this  with  the  other  great  Literatures  of  the  world.  What 
is  there  in  English  Literature  after  Shakspere,  or  in  German 
before  Lessing,  What  of  commanding  greatness  in  Spanish 
after  the  Golden  Age  of  Lope  and  Calderon?  In  France 
note  the  fact  first,  that  the  appearance  of  the  "Cid"  is  not 
an  unexpected  event.  Corneille's  drama  does  not,  as  was 
believed  for  a  long  time  when  the  real  history  of  the  French 
drama  was  but  very  imperfectly  known,  come  out  suddenly 
from  the  utter  darkness  of  ignorance.  It  is  the  result  of  the 
strivings  of  one  generation  and  another  after  dramatic  per- 
fection. While  the  medieval  mystery  and  miracle  play 
slowly,  very  slowly,  sinks  into  its  grave,  the  modern  forms, 
tragedy,  comedy,  and  tragi-comedy,  not  less  slowly  come  into 
shape,  developing  their  more  or  less  complicated  structure 
from  the  mere  embryo  of  Jodelle  in  the  middle  of  the 
sixteenth  to  the  perfected  model  of  the  following  century. 
And  from  that  time  to  the  present  day  not  one  half-century 
has  elapsed  which  has  not  enriched  French  dramatic  Literature 
with  some  works  of  lasting  value.  The  half-century  which 
followed  the  production  of  the"Cid"  (1636-1686)  witnessed 
the  production  not  only  of  the  other  masterpieces  due  to 
Corneille's  genius,  but  also  the  whole  of  Moliere's  production 
and  nearly  the  whole  of  Racine's.  In  the  half-century  fol- 
lowing (1686-1736),  appeared  the  last  two  plays  of  Racine, 
oneof  them, "  Athalie,"  deservingto  be  considered  the  starting- 
point  of  the  modern  freer  and  spectacular  drama,  Le  Sage's  and 
Regnard's  comedies,  and  the  two  most  striking  of  Voltaire's 
tragedies,  "Brutus"  and  "Zaire."  Between  1736  and  1786 
we  have,  in  addition  to  the  rest  of  Voltaire's  dramatic  works, 
the  comedies  of  Marivaux  and  Sedaine,  and  the  two  dazzling 
comedies  of  Beaumarchais,  "The   Barber  of  Seville,"   and 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  279 

"Figaro's  Wedding."  It  is  towards  the  close  of  the  next  fifty 
years'  period  that  the  Romantic  revolt  tried  to  break  the 
supremacy  of  the  Classical  School.  Hugo's  "Hernani"  was 
produced  in  1830,  and  had  been  preceded  by  the  dramatic 
debuts  of  Alexandre  Dumas,  the  elder;  Casimir  Delavigne, 
whose  "  Louis  XI "  used  to  be  one  of  the  favorite  parts  of  that 
sterling  English  tragedian,  Sir  Henry  Irving,  belongs  to 
the  same  generation.  And  then  comes  the  age  of  Scribe  and 
Sardou,  of  Emile  Augier  and  Alexandre  Dumas,  the  younger. 
The  present  uncompleted  half-century  does  not  seem  more 
likely  than  the  preceding  ones  to  be  considered  barren  of 
great  dramatic  works  by  the  ages  to  come.  It  will  suffice  here 
to  single  out  the  production  of  Rostand's  "Cyrano  de  Ber- 
gerac  "  in  the  last  days  of  the  year  1897.  Without  going  into 
any  detailed  study  of  the  French  drama,  for  which  time 
would  now  be  lacking,  we  may  here  call  attention  to  two  or 
three  points  which  will  make  it  still  clearer  that  the  drama 
is  the  most  original,  the  most  rational  part  of  French  Litera- 
ture. It  is  now  universally  acknowledged  that  Moliere  is 
the  greatest  dramatic  genius  ever  produced  by  France.  In 
fact,  he  and  Shakspere  stand  out  as  the  two  dramatic  giants 
of  modern  nations.  But  in  judging  Moliere  and  assigning 
him  his  rank  in  the  galaxy  of  the  world's  dramatic  poets, 
it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  Moliere  died  before  Time  had 
allowed  him  to  deliver  in  full  his  message  to  mankind.  From 
his  return  to  Paris,  after  his  '' Wander jahre"  through  the 
provinces  of  France,  to  his  death  in  February,  1673,  hardly 
fifteen  years  elapsed.  His  average  productivity  during  that 
period  was  two  plays  a  year;  how  many  of  them,  ''The 
Miser,"  "Tartufe,"  "Don  Juan,"  "The  Misanthrope,"  "The 
Pedantic  Women,"  masterpieces,  the  profound  insight  of 
which  into  the  recesses  of  human  nature  time  only  serves 
more  clearly  to  demonstrate;  composed  by  him  only  in  the 
intervals  left  free  by  his  arduous  labors  as  actor,  theatrical 
manager,  and  court  entertainer,  they  are  a  prodigious  example 


280  FRENCH  LITERATURE 

of  human  industry.  At  the  close  of  the  period  his  genius 
does  not  betray  the  shghtest  sign  of  enfeeblement,  his 
last  two  plays,  "The  Pedantic  Women"  and  the  "Malade 
Imaginaire,"  being  among  his  best.  And  then  he  dies,  hardly 
fifty-one  years  old,  carrying  to  his  grave  how  many  other 
unwritten  masterpieces! 

Now  let  us  look  at  the  Romantic  drama.  It  blazed  for  a  while 
and  then  went  out.  Wliat  remains  of  it  to-day  is  simply 
Hugo's  dramatic  production.  It  begins  with  "  Hernani " 
(1830);  it  closes  with  the  "  Burgraves "  (1843).  The 
more  we  study  Hugo's  dramas  the  more  clearly  we  see  that 
Hugo  was  not  intended  by  nature  for  a  dramatist.  There 
would  be  nothing  easier  than  to  show  how  absurd,  from  a 
purely  dramatic  point  of  view,  such  works  as  "  Hernani," 
"Marion  Delorme,"  and  the  "King's  Diversion"  are;  and  the 
climax  is  reached  in  the  lurid,  but  none  the  less  majestic, 
"  Burgraves."  But  everywhere  the  lyric  splendor  of  Hugo's 
verse  blinds  us  to  the  childishness  of  his  dramatic  construction. 
Nowhere  more  than  in  his  dramas  has  Hugo  demonstrated 
that  he  was  essentially  a  lyric,  perhaps  also  an  epic,  poet, 
but  not  a  dramatist.  Why  then  did  he  throw  so  much  of 
his  strength  and  vitality  into  dramatic  form  as  to  hold  us 
spellbound,  in  spite  of  faults  which  would  have  brought 
ridicule  upon  any  other  writer?  Because  he  had  to.  As  the 
head  of  the  Romantic  School  he  had,  under  penalty  of  having 
the  new  school  unanimously  proclaimed  inferior  to  the  old, 
which  had  produced  the  masterpieces  of  Corneille  and  Racine, 
to  demonstrate  that  the  rebels,  whom  he  led  in  their  on- 
slaughts against  worn-out  literary  dogmas,  were  as  able  as 
their  forerunners  to  win  the  laurels  of  the  stage.  So  strongly 
embedded  in  the  French  mind  was  the  conviction  that  the 
drama  is  the  highest  and  most  complete  form  of  poetry! 

And  later,  after  Shakspere's  supremacy,  so  long  disputed 
in  France,  had  finally  come  to  be  acknowledged,  it  would  have 
been  for  the  French  language  a  sign  of  inferiority  had  it  been 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  281 

found  impossible  to  prepare  for  the  French  stage  adequate 
renderings  of  the  great  English  masterpieces.  This  naturali- 
zation of  Shakspere  upon  the  French  stage  at  last  took  place, 
not  through  the  efforts  of  any  one  man,  but  by  the  labors  of 
a  legion  of  dramatists  and  poets,  anxious  to  vie  with  each 
other  in  enriching  the  most  dramatic  Literature  with  the 
most  powerful  of  all  dramatic  works.  Paul  Meurice, 
Jules  Lacroix,  Edmond  Harancourt,  Paul  Delair,  Auguste 
Dorchain,  Louis  Legrand,  and  others  thus  cooperated 
in  a  work  which  was  intended  to  add  to  the  dramatic 
Literature  of  their  country  what  it  needed  in  order  to  be- 
come the  most  complete,  as  it  already  was  the  most  varied, 
of  all  dramatic  Literatures. 

But,  striking  as  it  is,  this  extraordinary  vitality  of  the  drama 
is  not  the  most  important  phenomenon  in  the  history  of  French 
Literature.  It  is  merely  an  effect,  more  visible  perhaps  than 
any  other,  of  a  cause  which  pervades  the  whole  intellectual 
life  of  the  nation,  and  which  has  been  alluded  to  above  already, 
viz.  the  conviction  that  there  is  no  essential  difference  be- 
tween a  speaker's  and  a  writer's  words;  that,  just  as  no  one 
except  a  madman  will  speak  only  to  himself,  no  one  will 
write  except  with  the  object  of  communicating  with  readers. 
But  to  communicate  what?  This  brings  us  to  the  question 
which  has  in  some  form  or  other  to  be  examined  in  any  literary 
inquiry:  What  is  Literature?  Does  it  consist  of  some 
specially  literary  forms,  created  purposely  by  the  imaginative 
faculty  of  the  human  mind?  Whatever  theoretical  answer 
may  be  given  to  the  question,  the  French  answer  is  clear 
enough .  The  literary  or  non-literary  character  of  an  utterance 
does  not  depend  on  its  subject,  but  on  its  excellence.  As  soon 
as  a  thought  has  been  couched  in  such  language  that  those 
who  hear  or  read  it,  and  who  consider  it  true,  admit  that  they 
could  not  improve  upon  it,  and  that  the  best  they  can  do 
when  wishing  to  give  it  expression  is  to  reproduce  the  words 
just  addressed  to  them,  this  utterance  becomes  Literature. 


282  FRENCH  LITERATURE 

Quite  naturally  the  most  engrossing  thoughts  will  beget  the 
most  striking  expression.  This  is  what  was  meant  by  Boileau 
in  his  famous  lines 

"  Ce  que  Ton  congoit  bien  s'enonce  clairemcnt, 
Et  les  mots  pour  le  dire  arrivent  aisement. " 

This  fact  receives  marvelous  confirmation  from  even  a  most 
rapid  survey  of  Voltaire's  literary  career.  When,  early  in 
his  life,  Frangois  Marie  Arouet  put  in  his  first  bid  as  a  candi- 
date for  literary  fame,  nothing  was  farther  from  his  mind 
than  the  kind  of  activity  which,  in  the  last  century,  led  John 
Morley  to  salute  him  as  the  author  of  "one  of  the  cardinal 
liberations  of  the  race."  Corneille  and  Racine  were  held  to 
be  the  greatest  literary  names  of  the  century  just  closed. 
To  rival,  possibly  to  surpass  them  by  a  strict  application  of 
the  rules  laid  down  by  their  contemporary,  Boileau,  was  then 
his  sole  ambition.  And  soon  the  success  of  his  first  tragedy, 
"CEdipe,"  and  still  more  the  universal  applause  that  greeted 
the  appearance  of  his  epic  poem,  "La  Henriade,"  gave  fair 
promise  of  the  realization  of  this  dream.  But  he  had  not 
yet  completed  his  thirty-second  year  when  his  enforced  trip 
to  England  placed  this  pupil  of  the  Jesuits  and  this  subject 
of  the  absolute  King  of  France,  face  to  face  with  a  state  of 
things  in  which  political  and  civil  liberty,  freedom  of  speech 
and  religious  freedom,  in  no  way  interfered  with  the  sway 
of  law  and  order,  and  rather  fostered  than  hindered  the  growth 
of  national  power.  That  he  should  let  his  countrymen  know 
what  he  had  seen,  and  the  thoughts  to  which  contact  with 
a  freer  atmosphere  had  given  birth  in  his  mind,  was  an  in- 
evitable consequence  for  this  impetuous  man,  for  whom  by 
nature  it  was  as  impossible  to  keep  for  himself  a  particle  of 
discovered  truth  as  for  the  sun  to  hide  one  of  his  beneficent 
rays.  The  publication  of  the  "  Letters  upon  the  English 
Nation,"  the  first  of  his  works  devoted  to  the  dissemination 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  283 

of  what  came  to  be  called  Voltairean  ideas,  was  followed  by- 
numberless  other  works  upon  politics,  history,  philosophy, 
science,  social  and  legislative  reforms,  until  his  various  ut- 
terances upon  so  many  subjects  constituted  a  whole  arsenal 
at  the  service  of  all  those  who  yearned  for  more  light,  more 
air,  more  truth,  and  more  freedom.  But  how  astonished  the 
author  of  all  these  would  have  been  had  he  been  told  that 
in  those  marvelously  clear  utterances  lay  the  very  founda- 
tions of  his  undying  literary  glory,  and  that  the  "Essay  on 
Manners"  or  the  "  Treatise  on  Toleration  "  would  long  out- 
live such  a  tragedy  as  "  Alzire  "  or  even  his  great  epic  poem! 
And  this  simply  because  his  message  to  mankind,  though  far 
from  being  absent  from  the  works  framed  by  him  in  obedience 
to  the  rules  laid  down  by  Boileau,  does  not  ring  there  with  the 
penetrating  clearness  which  is  recognized  as  soon  as  Voltaire 
addresses  his  contemporaries  in  his  own  name  and  in  their 
interest,  and  not  a  theatrical  or  literary  public,  under  the 
guise  of  imaginary  characters,  and  under  the  trammels  of 
an  outworn  esthetic  legislation. 

Strange  to  say,  were  we  to  couple  any  other  name  with 
Voltaire's,  it  would  be  that  of  Bossuet,  the  greatest  divine 
given  to  France  by  the  Catholic  Church.  In  the  saying  that 
Voltaire  was  the  Bossuet  of  the  eighteenth  and  Bossuet  the 
Voltaire  of  the  seventeenth  century,  there  is  more  truth  than 
paradox.  Like  Voltaire,  Bossuet  delivered  to  his  age  the 
message  which  it  needed  and  was  ready  to  understand,  and 
he  delivered  it  with  such  convincing  force  as  to  remain  to 
this  day  the  truest  exponent  of  the  spirit  of  seventeenth- 
century  France,  and  to  be  the  one  mere  preacher  of  sermons 
whose  works  have  become  a  part  of  mankind's  literary 
treasure. 

To  express  in  each  age  with  the  greatest  felicity  and  with 
unmistakable  clearness  the  main  preoccupations  of  the  time, 
—  such  has  been  the  mission  of  French  Literature,  and  this 
mission  has  been  so  well  discharged  that  he  who  has  carefully 


284  FRENCH   LITERATURE 

read  the  works  of  each  period  might  almost  dispense  with  any 
further  study  of  its  history. 

All  the  turmoil  and  confusion,  the  clashes  of  unbridled  in- 
dividualism, the  thirst  after  knowledge  and  the  lust  of  the 
unchained  beast  that  are  typical  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
appear  in  Rabelais'  gigantic  literary  puzzle;  and  side  by  side 
with  it,  in  Ronsard,  du  Bellay,  and  their  school,  we  find  all 
the  elegance  and  refinement  of  those  Italian  courts  which 
taught  France  and  all  Europe  how  to  hide,  and  perhaps  ulti- 
mately to  lessen,  all  the  vulgarities  of  life  under  the  purple 
and  gold,  the  silk  and  velvet  of  the  richest  artistic  mantle. 
And  who  can  read  even  a  few  pages  of  Montaigne's  im- 
mortal ''  Essays "  without  hearing,  through  the  apparent 
skepticism  of  this  most  minute  describer  of  human  moods,  an 
echo  of  the  fierce  religious  wars  which  were  then  covering  the 
whole  of  France,  and  such  a  large  portion  of  Europe,  with 
the  smoke  of  burning  villages  and  the  remains  of  human 
martyrs. 

In  modern  French  Literature  this  identification  of  the 
history  of  each  period  with  the  activity  of  its  literary  inter- 
preters becomes  visible  through  the  presence,  in  each  of  the 
last  three  centuries,  of  a  writer  of  commanding  greatness 
whose  span  of  life  covers  almost  the  whole  of  the  century,  so 
that  the  seventeenth  century  might  be  known  as  the  century 
of  Corneille  (1606-1684),  the  eighteenth  as  the  century  of 
Voltaire  (1694-1778),  and  the  nineteenth  as  the  century  of 
Victor  Hugo  (1802-1885). 

Rarely  indeed  has  Literature  so  completely  revealed  a 
nation's  condition  as  was  done  in  France  during  the  first 
of  these  three  centuries.  The  very  multiplicity  of  great 
writers,  three  of  them  dramatists,  points  to  a  period  of  great 
splendor.  The  political  absolutism  of  the  king  might  be 
deduced  from  the  fact  that,  from  the  works  of  so  many  writers 
of  powerful  intellect,  political  discussions  are,  we  might  say 
without  exaggeration,  totally  absent.     But  not  a  single  line 


FRENCH   LITERATURE  285 

betrays  any  desire  for  a  different  state  of  things.  The 
absolute  sway  of  the  sovereign  is  so  fully  accepted,  nay, 
desired,  by  the  nation,  that,  deprived  of  political  power  as  it 
is,  it  feels  as  free  as  if  provided  with  agencies  for  the  mani- 
festation and  enforcement  of  its  will.  Listen  only  to  one  of 
its  favorite  poets,  —  listen  to  Racine.  In  his  tragedy  of 
"  Britannicus  "  he  introduces  to  us  a  character  whom  we  may 
consider  a  type  of  the  upright  public  servant,  Burrhus,  now 
minister,  formerly  private  tutor  to  Nero.  And  when  Burrhus 
explains  to  the  Emperor's  mother,  Agrippina,  the  principles 
by  which  he  was  guided  while  directing  her  son's  education, 
he  states  that  his  ambition  was,  that  in  the  work  of  a  trium- 
phant reign, 

"  Rome  soit  toujours  libra  et  Cesar  tout-puissant." 

Thus  in  one  line  of  the  poet  we  have  made  clear  to  us  the 
mental  attitude  of  a  society  that  saw  no  contradiction  be- 
tween the  omnipotence  of  the  monarch  and  the  freedom  of 
the  people.  Political  problems  were,  for  such  people,  non- 
existent; and  La  Bruyere,  at  the  end  of  the  century,  in  his 
"Characters,"  ridicules  the  busy  bodies  who  give  themselves 
airs  of  infringing  upon  the  province  of  the  prince,  and  dis- 
cussing matters  which  lie  far  beyond  their  sphere. 

And  yet  seldom  have  problems  relating  to  man's  conduct 
been  discussed  with  greater  frequency,  profundity,  and  dis- 
crimination, —  nay,  fervor  and  passion,  than  by  these  writers 
of  a  stately  age,  when  self-satisfied  France  believed  for  a  while 
that  she  had  reached  the  goal  of  perfect  and  permanent  social 
and  political  arrangements.  The  whole  nature  of  man,  in  all 
its  manifestations,  passes  under  the  scrutinizing  eye  of  Pascal 
and  Bossuet,  La  Rochefoucauld  and  La  Bruyere,  Corneille 
and  Racine.  Even  La  Fontaine,  in  his  "Comedi  a  cent  actes 
divers,"  as  he  calls  his  "Fables,"  reveals  to  us  a  good  deal  of 
what  we  every  day  hide,  not  from  our  neighbor  only,  but  from 
our  own  vision;  and  the  whole  seems  to  be  summed  up  by 
Moliere,  in  his  sometimes  somber  and  tragic  comedy,  which 


286  FRENCH   LITERATURE 

reaches  its  climax  when  in  his  "Misanthrope"  he  reproduces 
before  our  eyes,  with  unsparing  fidelity,  the  everlasting  con- 
flict between  Society  and  Sincerity. 

But  in  the  succeeding  age  other  thoughts  engrossed  the 
mind  of  the  public.  Outwardly  indeed,  Literature  bore  the 
same  face.  Poets  still,  and  Voltaire  at  their  head,  wrote 
tragedies  like  Racine,  odes,  satires,  epistles  hke  Boileau, 
even  epic  poems  that  were  held  to  equal,  nay,  to  outdo,  the 
"iEneid"  and  the  "Iliad,"  but  after  the  disasters  and  sufferings 
of  the  latter  part  of  Louis  XIV's  reign,  after  the  scandals 
and  speculations  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans'  regency,  the  robust 
optimism  of  a  Bossuet  would  have  been  entirely  out  of  place, 
and  it  was  but  natural  that  the  best  minds  of  the  age  should 
no  longer  devote  their  strongest  efforts  to  the  discussion  of 
problems  entirely  unconnected  with  what  we  are  wont  to  call 
public  affairs.  Yet  the  time  had  not  come  when  politics 
properly  so  called  were  to  be  in  France  anybody's  business 
but  the  King's.  And  therefore  politics  and  Literature  are 
as  completely  apart  from  each  other  in  the  eighteenth  as  in 
the  seventeenth  century.  What  has  collapsed  is  the  theory 
which  represented  France  under  Louis  XIV  as  the  picture 
of  the  ideal  condition  for  the  whole  of  mankind.  The  voyage 
of  man  toward  his  ultimate  goal  is  now  known  to  be  far  from 
ended.  It  behooves  him  to  inquire  wherever  he  can  for  the 
best  direction  to  follow.  Revelation  he  has  tried,  and  it 
seems  to  have  failed.  Science  is  young  and  has  not  yet  been 
tried.  Therefore  he  will  turn  to  Science,  or.  using  the  language 
of  the  time,  to  Reason.  Montesquieu,  first  of  the  great  minds 
of  the  century,  in  his  "Persian  Letters,"  as  a  preliminary  task, 
but  for  the  fulfilment  of  which  everything  else  was  bound  to 
failure,  calls  the  attention  of  his  contemporaries  to  their 
foolish  custom  of  considering  absurd  aV  that  does  not  agree 
with  their  own  uses  and  practices.  Then  Voltaire's  "  English 
Letters"  endeavor  to  demonstrate  to  them  the  wisdom  of 
many  things  held  by  him  to  be  done  better  out  of  France 


FRENCH   LITERATURE  287 

than  in  it.  Once  started,  the  movement  of  scientific  inquiry- 
goes  on  without  interruption.  The  great  writings,  the  Hterary 
masterpieces  of  the  age,  are  no  longer  tragedies,  comedies, 
fables,  sermons,  works  upon  morals,  but "  The  Spirit  of  Laws," 
—  an  attempt  scientifically  to  present  to  mankind  a  view  of  all 
its  legislative  labors;  the  "Essay  on  Manners,"  aiming  to 
be  a  philosophic  presentation  of  universal  history;  Buffon's 
"Natural  History,"  which  brings  Science  properly  so  called 
within  the  domain  of  Literature;  even  Diderot  and  d'Alem- 
bert's  bulky  "  Encyclopedia,"  born  of  the  idea  that  it  is  man's 
right  to  have  within  his  reach  all  that  it  is  possible  for  him  to 
know,  that  thus  alone,  by  giving  him  a  clear  point  whence  to 
start,  will  he  be  able  to  perform  the  duty  just  discovered  as 
imposed  upon  mankind  and  summed  up  in  one  word,  —  Prog- 
ress. Even  the  stage  is  enlisted  in  this  search  after  new  and 
better  things,  and  Beaumarchais'  "Marriage  of  Figaro,"  per- 
formed, in  spite  of  Louis  XVI's  not  unreasonable  misgivings, 
but  five  years  before  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution,  sounds 
the  knell  of  the  old  order  of  things. 

The  political  revolution  which  broke  out  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century  was  followed  by  a  literary  revolution. 
Politics  then  became  a  subject  of  general  interest,  and  at  once 
invaded  Literature.  The  "  Genius  of  Christianity  "  which  was 
brought  out  by  Chateaubriand  in  the  earliest  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  which  preceded  by  a  few  weeks  only 
the  signing  of  the  concordat  by  General  Bonaparte,  then  First 
Consul  of  the  French  Republic,  was  a  work  of  political  no 
less  than  literary  significance.  During  the  whole  of  the  cen- 
tury politics  and  Literature  appear  almost  inextricably  mixed. 
Hardly  one  great  literary  name  that  has  not  its  place  in  the 
political  history  of  the  period.  And  this  is  true  of  the  women, 
of  Madame  de  Stael  and  George  Sand,  not  less  than  of  the 
men;  of  the  poets,  not  less  than  of  the  historians  and  philos- 
ophers. Chateaubriand  gloried  in  having  given  Louis  XVIII 
more  than  an  army  by  the  publication  of  his  pamphlet  on 


288  FRENCH   LITERATURE 

"Buonaparte  and  the  Bourbons."  Lamartine  sits  as  a 
member  in  the  legislative  halls  of  the  reign  of  Louis  Philippe, 
and  as  President  in  the  Provisional  Government  of  the  Second 
Republic.  The  works  of  Victor  Hugo,  begun  with  a  collec- 
tion of  royalist  and  catholic  Odes,  and  crowned  by  "Les 
Chatiments,"  an  impassioned  arraignment  of  the  Second 
Empire  of  Napoleon  III,  as  well  as  an  eloquent  defense  of 
republican  and  democratic  ideas,  might  serve  as  a  running 
commentary  upon  the  whole  series  of  political  developments 
in  France  and  Europe,  from  the  time  of  his  entrance  into 
literary  life  aknost  to  the  day  of  his  death  in  May,  1885. 
Guizot,  the  historian,  is  Prime  Minister  from  1840  to  1848; 
Thiers,  President  of  the  Third  Republic;  Cousin,  Villemain, 
Tocqueville,  Duruy,  are  cabinet  Ministers.  Even  those  who 
occupy  no  political  positions,  like  Michelet  and  Quinet, 
never  write  a  line  that  is  wholly  free  from  political  preoccupa- 
tions. Others,  who  are  primarily  politicians,  see  what  can  be 
achieved  for  their  cause  by  literary  eminence,  and  Louis 
Blanc  absorbs  himself  in  the  preparation  of  a  masterly  in- 
troduction to  his  one-sided  history  of  the  French  Revolution. 

Sainte-Beuve,  Renan,  are  certainly  not  political  names; 
yet  Sainte-Beuve  wrote  political  leaders  for  the  republican 
newspaper,  Le  National,  and  later  accepted  a  seat  in  the 
Imperial  Senate  of  Napoleon  III;  and  Renan  at  least  twice 
tried  to  have  himself  elected  a  representative  of  the  people. 
Were  it  not  that  he  felt  out  of  sorts  with  the  trend  of  con- 
temporary politics,  Taine  would  never  have  written  his 
"  Origin  of  Contemporary  France." 

Literature  is  enriched,  too,  by  the  appearance  of  two  kinds 
of  productions  hitherto  unknown  in  France,  —  parliamentary 
speeches  and  newspaper  articles,  both  owing  their  birth  to 
the  newly  created  political  life  of  the  French  people.  In 
short,  take  out  of  the  literary  production  of  the  nineteenth 
century  in  France  everything  that  owes  its  meaning,  partly 
or  totally,  to  the  political  developments  of  the  time,  and  what 


FRENCH   LITERATURE  289 

will  be  left  will  seem  a  very  poor  show  for  such  a  tremendously 
active  period  of  history. 

Something  would  be  left,  though,  and  well  worth  reading. 
j  Politics  predominate  because  they  are  the  newly  introduced 
/element  in  the  life  and  preoccupation  of  the  nation.  But 
Literature  now  aims  to  present  a  complete  picture  of  society; 
witness  Balzac's  stupendous  production,  which  he  gathers 
under  this  extraordinarily  ambitious  title  ''  The  Human 
Comedy";  witness  also  the  bewildering  variety  of  subjects 
treated  by  the  great  master  of  literary  criticism,  Sainte- 
Beuve.  For  criticism  now  speaks  in  its  own  name  and  does 
not  feel  compelled,  as  it  did  in  Boileau's  time,  to  hide  under 
the  cloak  of  prosaic  verse. 

Thus  in  these  three  centuries  of  continuous  literary  great-" 
ness.  Literature  in  France  goes  on  constantly  broadening; 
from  the  purely  speculative  study  of  man's  moral  nature 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  through  the  search  after  the 
conditions  necessary  to  social  progress  in  the  eighteenth, 
it  reaches  in  the  nineteenth  the  height  from  which  it  can 
survey  the  whole  domain  of  human  activity,  rejoicing  in  all 
its  glories,  lashing  all  its  vices,  weeping  over  all  its  miseries, 
and  bidding  Science  discover  a  cure  for  all  the  evils  but  for 
the  fight  against  which  life  would  not  be  worth  living. 


XV 

GERMAN   LITERATURE 

Calvin  Thomas,  Professor  of  the  Germanic 
Languages  and  Literatures 

In  pursuance  of  the  plan  of  these  lectures  it  falls  to  me  to 
set  forth,  as  well  as  I  can  in  a  short  hour,  the  distinctive  char- 
acter and  value  of  the  German  contribution  to  the  world's 
literature.  The  task  is  at  once  grateful  and  difficult.  It  is 
grateful  because  there  are  parts  of  German  Literature  which 
I  have  found  very  profitable  for  study,  and  one  likes  to  talk 
of  that  which  one  loves.  To-night,  however,  I  cannot  merely 
conduct  you  to  my  own  favorite  nooks  and  vistas  in  the  forest, 
but  I  must  try  to  give  some  account  of  the  forest  as  a  whole. 
And  there  comes  in  the  difficulty.  For  German  Literature 
is  a  very  different  thing  at  different  epochs,  and  even  within 
the  epochs  there  is  much  diversity  for  which  it  is  hard  to  find 
a  unifying  formula.  But,  for  better  or  worse,  the  order  of 
the  day  is  broad  generalization  about  a  vast  and  complicated 
subject  that  has  a  long  history.  In  such  case  the  motto 
must  be:  Cautious,  very  cautious,  but  not  too  cautious. 
Let  us  do  the  best  we  can,  endeavoring  to  look  at  the  subject 
in  a  large  way,  but  without  ever  forgetting  the  inherent 
deceitfulness  of  the  general  phrase. 

Some  years  ago  an  eminent  French  critic,  M.  Brunetiere, 
being  in  pursuit  of  very  general  truth,  as  we  are  now,  com- 
mitted himself  to  the  proposition  that  German  Literature 
is  philosophic.  The  literature  of  France,  he  said,  is  social; 
that  of  England  individualistic;   that  of  Italy  artistic;   that 

291 


292  GERMAN   LITERATURE 

of  Spain  chevalresque,  and  that  of  Germany  philosophic. 
Now  that  sounds  rather  seductive.  It  is  so  convenient  to 
have  all  those  great  literatures  thus  neatly  labeled  with  an 
adjective  so  easy  to  remember.  But  is  German  Literature, 
taken  as  a  whole,  really  philosophic?  Where  is  the  "philoso- 
phy" in  the  "Nibelung  Lay,"  in  the  songs  of  Walther  von  der 
Vogelweide,  in  the  poems  of  the  Dietrich-saga?  Is  "phil- 
osophic" the  word  that  lights  up  the  distinctive  character 
of  the  old  folksongs,  of  Luther's  Bible,  of  Hans  Sachs,  of 
"  Simplicissimus,"  of  the  poems  of  Giinther,  the  odes  of  Klop- 
stock,  of  the  "  Sufferings  of  Young  Werther"?  Is  it  the  right 
word  for  Wieland's  "  Oberon,"  for  the  classic  drama  of  Lessing, 
Goethe,  and  Schiller,  for  the  work  of  the  famous  nineteenth- 
century  lyrists,  for  the  plays  of  Kleist,  Grillparzer,  Hebbel, 
and  Hauptmann?  The  question  answers  itself.  And  yet, 
those  which  I  have  named  are  not  out-of-the-way  things; 
they  are  some  of  the  important,  the  characteristic  things,  of 
German  Literature  from  age  to  age. 

There  is,  indeed,  a  body  of  far-famed  German  philosophy 
—  the  work  of  resolute  and  lonely  thinkers  who  wrote  for 
their  own  kind  —  which  to  some  extent  has  influenced  "  Lit- 
.  erature"  in  our  conventional  sense  of  the  word.  But  this 
influence  is  of  comparatively  recent  origin,  and  is  apt  to  be 
exaggerated;  on  the  whole  it  is  rather  insignificant.  Taken 
by  itself,  however,  the  work  of  Kant  and  Fichte  and  Hegel 
is  an  outgrowth  of  the  specialization  of  modern  thought. 
Like  the  writings  of  the  great  theologians,  historians,  natu- 
ralists, it  flows  apart  from  the  general  Literary  current.  It  is 
not  what  we  mean  by  German  Literature,  any  more  than 
Berkeley  and  Stuart  Mill  and  Herbert  Spencer  are  what  we 
mean  by  English  Literature. 

Of  course  there  is  a  sense  in  which  works  of  real  Literature, 
for  example,  "Faust,"  "Wilhelm  Meister,"  "Nathan  the 
Wise,"  may  be  called  philosophic;  the  sense,  namely,  that  they 
embody  criticism  of  life.    But  in  that  sense  all  vital  Literature 


GERMAN   LITERATURE  293 

is  philosophic.  The  difference  between  "Faust,"  say,  and  a 
play  of  Corneille,  is  not  expressed  by  calling  the  one  phil- 
osophic and  the  other  social.  Both  are  philosophic,  both 
social.  Each  mirrors  a  creative  mind  that  was  a  child  of  its 
epoch  and  was  interested  in  certain  spiritual  values.  Each 
reacts  in  its  own  way  on  the  soul  of  the  reader  or  the  spectator, 
and  this  soul  which  is  affected  includes  the  social  feelings. 
If  Goethe  is  harder  to  understand  than  Corneille,  it  is  not 
because  of  his  abstruseness,  but  because  there  is  more  of  him. 
He  deals  with  a  far  wider  range  of  human  experience.  What 
is  needed  for  the  enjoyment  of  "  Faust"  is  not  a  course  of  read- 
ing in  philosophy,  but  knowledge  of  life  in  its  concrete  variety, 
its  rush,  and  its  pressure.  And  the  same  is  substantially 
true  of  every  German  literary  production  that  has  proved  to 
have  any  real  vitality  in  it,  apart  from  the  exigencies  of  the 
scholar-class,  who  must  of  course  have  their  Stoff  for  the 
laboratory.  To  say  that  German  Literature  is  philosophic, 
and  stop  there,  is  too  much  like  saying  that  the  population 
of  Boston  is  red-headed.  To  be  sure,  even  that  dictum  has 
its  use  in  that  it  sets  you  thinking;  thinking,  namely,  how 
many  Bostonians  you  have  known  who  are  not  red-headed. 
Of  the  larger  factors  that  go  to  make  a  nation's  literature 
what  it  is,  the  two  most  important  are  language  and  ethnic 
character.  It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  any  attempt  to 
describe  the  essential  qualities  of  German  Literature  should 
begin  with  an  account  of  the  German  language  and  the  Ger- 
man people.  The  genius  of  a  nation's  language,  said  Herder, 
is  the  genius  of  its  Literature.  But,  unfortunately  for  the 
present  purpose,  the  genius  of  a  language  is  something  that 
cannot  be  effectively  described  in  a  few  words.  One  would 
be  compelled  to  attack  the  problem  by  means  of  detailed 
philological  analysis  and  comparison,  such  as  would  be  out  of 
place  on  this  occasion.  So  far  as  poetry  is  concerned,  the 
genius  of  German  is  not  very  different  from  that  of  English. 
Both  languages  are  sprung  from  a  common  stock,  and  both 


294  GERMAN   LITERATURE 

retain  much  of  the  ancient  inheritance.  Both  have  borrowed 
largely  from  the  Latin  and  the  French.  Both  have  a  stress 
accent,  differing  from  the  pitch-accent  of  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  and  usually  falling,  in  native  words,  on  the  root 
syllable.  The  chief  difference  is  that  English  has  lost  more 
than  German  of  the  old  unaccented  endings.  For  practical 
purposes  this  loss  may  be  set  down  as  gain,  but  for  the  pur- 
poses of  poetry  its  effect  has  been  to  restrict  the  choice  of 
feminine  rhymes,  and  thus  to  lessen  the  range  of  those  rhythmic 
and  melodic  effects  which  depend  on  them.  The  English 
poet  has,  I  think,  a  more  powerful  instrument,  but  the  Ger- 
man a  more  delicate  and  flexible.  Nothing  is  impossible  to 
the  good  craftsman  in  German  verse.  Not  without  reason 
do  the  Germans  boast  that  their  translations  of  the  world's 
great  poetry  are  on  the  whole  better  than  those  of  any  other 
people.  It  has  been  well  said  that  every  good  French  trans- 
lation is  at  the  same  time  an  explanation.  The  good  Geraian 
translation  —  remember  that  I  am  now  speaking  of  poetry  — 
is  an  echo.  Let  me  give  just  a  single  illustration,  one  that 
was  used  long  ago  by  Bayard  Taylor,  to  show  how  the  Ger- 
man language  can  adapt  itself  to  an  English  verse-melody. 
It  is  a  well-known  stanza  of  Tennyson,  with  a  translation  by 
Strodtmann,  who,  by  the  way,  has  no  fame  as  a  poet. 

"The  splendour  falls  on  castle  walls 
And  snowy  summits  old  in  story ; 
The  long  light  shakes  across  the  lakes, 
And  the  wild  cataract  leaps  in  glory. 
Blow,  bugle,  blow,  set  the  wild  echoes  flying, 
Blow,  bugle ;  answer,  echoes,  dying,  dying,  dying." 

"Es  fallt  der  Strahl  auf  Burg  und  Tal 
Und  schneeige  Gipfel  reich  an  Sagen ; 
Viel  Lichter  wehn  auf  blauen  Seen, 
Bergab  die  Wasserstiirze  jagen. 
Bias,  Hiifthorn,  bias,  im  Widerhall  erschallend, 
Bias,  Horn,  antwortet  Echos,  hallend,  hallend,  hallend." 


GERMAN   LITERATURE  295 

I  quote  these  lines  merely  for  the  purpose  stated,  namely, 
to  illustrate  the  metrical  flexibility  of  the  German  language. 
Unquestionably  much  of  Tennyson's  vividness  and  lyric 
intensity  is  lost  in  the  German  version.  We  miss  the  "long" 
light  that  "  shakes,"  and  get  something  less  good  in  its  place. 
In  Bergab  die  Wasserstiirze  jagen,  the  "  glory  "  of  the  original 
is  gone.  In  hallend,  hallend,  hallend,  the  echoes  do  not  "die  " 
as  they  should.  All  this,  however,  is  merely  saying  that 
poetry,  in  its  more  intimate  nature,  is  hardly  translatable. 

When  we  come  to  prose,  the  genius  of  German  is  less  like 
that  of  English.  Modern  German  has  developed  an  elaborate 
periodic  structure,  with  rigid  rules  of  word-order  in  subor- 
dinate clauses  and  a  tendency  to  make  the  sentence  very 
complex.  I  seem  to  observe  in  recent  writers  a  conscious 
reaction  against  that  sort  of  thing,  but  it  does  not  yet  amount 
to  a  revolution.  Thus  it  has  come  about  that,  while  German 
verse  is  more  flexible  than  English,  German  prose  is  less 
flexible,  less  expeditious,  more  intricate.  To  the  uninitiated 
those  Gothic  cathedrals  of  syntax  become  mere  jungles  in 
which  it  is  easy  to  get  lost.  And  in  the  hands  of  a  careless 
writer  they  really  are  jungles.  It  is  said  that  a  Frenchman 
cannot  write  his  mother-tongue  in  an  altogether  slovenly 
manner  if  he  tries.  But  a  German  can  do  it  without  trying. 
I  would  not  seem  to  imply,  however,  that  Germans  are  less 
sensitive  than  other  folk  to  the  rhythm  of  good  prose.  In  the 
best  masters,  in  Goethe  and  Schiller,  in  Heine  and  Keller, 
the  rhythm  is  always  there;  but  it  is  apt  to  be  complicated, 
and  it  requires  for  its  appreciation  an  ear  that  is  sensitive  to 
the  German  cadence  of  words  and  phrases.  I  am  persuaded 
that  the  recent  vogue  of  Nietzsche  is  no  more  due  to  his  doc- 
trine than  to  the  marvelous  rhjrthm  of  his  style.  At  his  best 
he  is  a  great  prose  poet.  The  madness  of  the  intellect  was 
paired  in  him  with  a  superb  gift  for  the  orchestration  of 
words. 

As  for  the  ethnic  character  that  is  reflected  in  German  Liter- 


296  GERMAN   LITERATURE 

ature,  I  hardly  venture  to  speak  of  that  at  all.  What  can 
one  say  that  is  broadly  true  of  the  whole  German  people, 
from  Karl  the  Great  to  Bismarck,  and  from  the  Alps  to  the 
Northern  Seas,  and  yet  is  not  true  of  any  other  people?  What, 
indeed,  except  that  they  speak  the  German  language?  A 
few  centuries  ago  the  German  stock  appears  identical  with 
the  English,  Go  a  little  farther  back,  and  it  fuses  more  or 
less  with  the  Roman,  the  Slavic,  the  Celtic,  and  the  other 
stocks  that  philologists  call  "Aryan."  This  whole  subject  of 
the  relation  of  linguistic  to  ethnic  kinship  is  in  a  rather  hazy 
condition,  a  free  field  for  speculation  by  three  classes  of 
investigators:  those  who  study  language,  those  who  study 
skulls,  facial  angles,  hair,  and  complexion,  and  those  who 
study  tools  and  ornaments.  Where  much  is  so  uncertain  a 
mere  literary  scholar  should  express  himself  with  caution.  I 
merely  say,  therefore,  that  it  seems  to  me  that  the  differences 
we  observe  in  the  great  nationalities  of  modem  Europe  are 
due  more  to  environment  and  tradition  than  to  anything  in 
their  blood  or  physical  conformation.  In  the  lapse  of  ages 
they  have  all  come  under  the  influence  of  the  same  great 
ideas,  and  civilization  tends  to  uniformity.  Amid  varying 
forms  of 'life,  all  over  the  world,  we  see  an  astonishing  simili- 
tude in  the  virtues  of  good  men,  and  also  in  the  ways  of  the 
transgressor,  in  the  follies  of  vanity  and  idleness,  in  the  ruin- 
ous effects  of  poverty,  ignorance,  and  vice.  I  have  hved 
much  in  Germany,  I  have  had  a  multitude  of  German  friends. 
But  I  do  not  undertake  to  tell  you  what  the  "  average"  German 
is  like.  He  is  no  less  elusive  and  phantasmal  than  the  "  aver- 
age "  Englishman,  Frenchman,  or  American.  Few  subjects  are 
more  tempting  to  the  ready  generalizer  than  that  of  national 
character;  but  the  summary  statements  always  rest  on 
limited  observation,  and  are  more  or  less  colored  by  the  prej- 
udice, the  mental  habit,  and  the  personal  experience  of  the 
commentator.  They  are  never  objectively  true  when  they 
deal  with  the  invisible  things  of  the  spirit.     You  can  write 


GERMAN   LITERATURE  297* 

the  history  of  a  great  people,  you  can  describe  their  forms  of 
life;  but  when  you  attempt  to  depict  their  ethical  character 
you  inevitably  depict  your  own. 

"  Das  ist  im  Grund  der  Herren  eigner  Geist, 
In  dem  die  Volker  sich  bespiegeln." 

You  can  average  a  column  of  figures,  but  you  can  not  average 
moral  qualities.  You  can  make  a  composite  photograph  of 
faces,  but  not  of  souls. 

If  now,  in  spite  of  what  I  have  been  saying,  I  still  hazard 
one  or  two  observations  on  the  German  character,  you  will 
understand  that  I  do  not  claim  for  them  any  great  importance 
or  any  absolute  validity.  They  are  the  impressions  of  an 
individual,  of  a  bookish  man,  of  a  lover.  You  can  make  your 
allowances. 

The  German  at  his  best  —  Literature  is  a  record  of  the  best 
for  the  best  —  seems  to  me  to  be  temperamentally  a  loyalist, 
intellectually  a  radical.  In  all  the  older  books,  the  virtue 
that  we  hear  most  about  is  Treue,  which  we  are  obliged  to 
translate  by  such  borrowed  words  as  fidelity  and  devotion. 
His  ethical  idealism  is  less  strenuous  than  the  Puritan's,  not 
because  he  wishes  to  live  lawlessly,  but  because  he  is  more 
interested  in  the  ultimate  whys  and  wherefores.  His  pro- 
clivity has  manifested  itself  historically  in  the  form  of  an 
earnest  devotion  to,  coupled  with  a  patient  and  laborious 
scrutiny  of,  those  great  idealisms  which,  one  after  another, 
have  ruled  the  life  of  Europe :  Feudalism,  the  Cathohc  Church, 
Holy  Scripture,  classical  learning,  progress  by  enlighten- 
ment. Romanticism,  science,  the  socialistic  state.  In  all  these 
matters,  if  the  German  has  seldom  been  the  pioneer,  he  has 
been  the  most  patient  and  industrious  of  subsequent  explorers 
and  road-builders.  If  he  has  but  rarely  given  the  very  best 
artistic  expression  to  the  form  and  pressure  of  an  epoch,  he 
has  excelled  in  working  out  its  intellectual  basis  and  conse- 
quences.    His  temperament  is  not  phlegmatic;  certainly  not 


298  GERMAN   LITERATURE 

in  Middle  and  South  Germany;  he  is  not,  as  is  so  often  asserted, 
deficient  in  the  sense  of  form.  But  his  intellectual  process 
is  slow,  circumspect,  reverent  of  first  principles. 

The  German's  patriotism  is  rooted,  like  other  men's,  in 
ancient  tribal  instinct,  but  on  the  whole  he  has  rationalized 
and  humanized  it  rather  more  than  other  peoples.  Having 
suffered  more  than  others  from  war  on  his  own  soil,  he  is  less 
subject  to  the  illusion  of  military  glory.  La  gloire  loses  half 
its  electricity  as  der  Ruhm.  "  My  country  right  or  wrong"  is 
hardly  a  German  motto;  partly,  perhaps,  because  "my  coim- 
try"  has  been  on  both  sides  of  so  many  important  questions. 
Like  other  nations,  the  Germans  idealize  their  great  fighters; 
this  is  human  nature,  and  seems  likely  to  remain  so  for  a 
long  time  to  come.  But  it  is  interesting  to  note  what  kind  of 
fighters  the  nations  idealize.  I  would  not  attach  too  much 
importance  to  legends  of  long  ago,  but  it  seems  worth  recalling 
at  the  present  time  that  the  chief  German  hero  of  an  earher 
day,  the  man  who,  more  than  any  other,  captivated  the 
German  imagination  and  held  it  for  centuries,  was  slow  to 
wrath,  reluctant  to  fight,  a  lover  of  justice  and  fair  play,  a 
man  gifted  with  a  high  sense  of  responsibility.  Taunts  that 
affected  only  his  personal  dignity  and  prowess  Dietrich  would 
bear  with  composure.  But  when  the  wanton  aggression  be- 
came too  insolent,  or  when  a  beloved  liegeman  fell,  to  whom 
he  was  in  honor  and  in  duty  bound,  then  at  last  the  mighty 
Amelung  would  draw  his  sword,  the  flames  would  begin  to 
stream  from  his  nostrils,  and,  —  well,  it  was  then  prudent 
to  keep  away  from  him. 

There  are  two  periods,  more  especially,  at  which  the  German 
genius  has  brought  forth  works  that  deserve  to  be  considered 
in  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  world's  literary  values.  Let  us 
call  them,  without  trying  to  be  very  precise  in  the  matter  of 
dates,  the  Age  of  the  "Nibelung  Lay"  and  the  Age  of  Goethe. 
Of  these  the  second  is  unmensely  the  more  important  for  the 
modem  man.     If  I  speak  mainly  of  that,  and  hardly  at  all 


GERMAN   LITERATURE  299 

of  what  follows  the  Age  of  Goethe,  it  is  not  from  any  feeling 
that  there  would  be  little  to  say;  it  is  because,  in  the  general 
perspective,  the  classic  era  has  the  better  claim  to  our  precious 
time.  There  is,  indeed,  much  in  the  more  recent  past  that  I 
should  like  to  discuss,  for  one  reason  or  another;  but  not 
very  much  that  is  at  the  same  time  distinctively  German 
and  highly  significant  for  the  world  at  large.  At  least,  it 
seems  so  to  me.  With  the  lapse  of  time  it  becomes  more  and 
more  difficult  to  disengage  and  evaluate  the  national  element 
in  the  great  modern  hteratures.  The  underlying  substance 
is  much  the  same  everywhere.  There  is  now  a  very  free  and 
rapid  interchange  of  the  ideas  and  emotions  which  constitute 
the  raw  material  of  Literature.  The  new  thoughts  grooving 
out  of  the  progress  of  science  and  invention ;  the  conflict  of  the 
classes  and  the  masses;  the  friction  of  church  and  science,  or 
of  religion  and  the  secular  spirit;  the  social  problems  that 
grow  out  of  the  modern  industrial  system;  the  position  of 
women,  marriage  and  divorce,  the  sexual  instinct,  with  its 
ecstasies  and  its  vagaries  —  these  are  a  few  of  the  matters 
about  which  men  and  women  are  writing  all  over  the  world. 
And  the  morning  paper  brings  the  literary  news  from  every- 
where. A  book  or  a  play  which  deeply  stirs  one  capital  is 
quickly  known  at  all  the  others.  Writers  get  hints  from 
every  direction  and  are  cosmopolitan  in  spite  of  themselves. 
We  read  them  just  because  they  deal  effectively  with  these 
universal  passions  and  problems.  For  that  which  is  avowedly 
provincial,  or  narrowly  national,  we  really  care  very  little, 
save  as  we  find  in  it  a  more  or  less  amusing  foil  to  the  life  we 
actually  lead.  Under  such  conditions  who  can  tell  any  longer 
what  is  national?  The  difference  of  savor  which  we  feel  in 
passing  from  an  English  to  a  French  or  German  book  is  more 
a  matter  of  language  and  of  personality  than  of  any  national 
idiosyncrasy  which  is  capable  of  exact  definition. 

Let  us  now  take  a  long  flight  through  the  backward  abysm 
of  time,  glance  for  a  moment  at  the  poetry  of  the  Middle 


300  GERMAN  LITERATURE 

Ages,  and  then  make  our  way  back  quickly  to  the  eighteenth 
century. 

Down  to  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century  the  Literature 
of  Germany  is  mainly  a  Literature  of  appropriation:  appro- 
priation of  the  Christian  rehgion,  with  its  Bible  stories,  its 
legendary  lore,  and  its  spirit  of  other-worldliness;  of  that 
fabulous  ancient  history  which  we  find  everywhere  in  medi- 
eval writings;  of  tales  of  fighting  and  adventure  which  had 
already  been  molded  into  poetic  form  in  France.  But  the 
old  indigenous  German  poetry  had  never  died  out.  After 
the  incoming  of  Christianity  it  was  kept  alive  by  illiterate 
gleemen  whose  work  did  not  get  written  down,  because  the 
churchmen,  who  alone  could  write,  looked  on  it  with  disfavor. 
In  the  latter  part  of  the  twelfth  century,  however,  the  art  of 
writing  began  to  be  more  generally  practised  by  the  knights, 
and  then  came  a  notable  flowering  of  lyric  and  narrative  poetry. 

Let  us  pass  by  all  that  part  of  it  which  has  any  resemblance 
to  the  work  of  the  ProvenQal  and  French  poets.  In  so  doing, 
to  be  sure,  we  shall  be  passing  by  the  most  winsome  lyrist  of 
medieval  Europe,  a  poet  equally  eminent  for  the  perfection  of 
his  artistry  and  the  rugged  virility  of  his  thought,  and  we  shall 
also  be  passing  by  the  profoundest  interpreter  of  Arthurian 
and  Grail  romance.  But  the  songs  of  Walther  von  der  Vogel- 
weide,  while  essentially  original,  as  much  so  as  the  work  of 
Chaucer,  belong  after  all  to  a  type  that  had  first  been  devel- 
oped in  France.  So  also  the  work  of  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach 
and  the  other  German  romancers,  while  it  contains  much  that 
is  truly  their  own,  follows  the  line  of  an  imported  fashion. 
This  is  not  the  case,  however,  with  that  ancient  conglomerate 
tale  of  the  fair  maid  of  Burgundy,  which  a  nameless  Austrian 
poet,  about  the  year  1200,  put  into  the  form  which  we  know 
as  the  "Lay  of  the  Nibelungs." 

There  is  no  time  here  for  any  comparison  of  the  "  Nibelung 
Lay"  with  the  other  famous  folk-epics,  such  as  the  Homeric 
poems,  the  "Mahabharata,"  the  "Shanama"  or  the  "Chan- 


GERMAN   LITERATURE  301 

son  de  Roland."  Nor  would  the  comparison  boot  much,  if 
there  were  time  for  it,  on  account  of  the  utter  unlikeness  of 
the  things  compared.  Which  is  the  most  soul-stirring  sight, 
the  Jungfrau  from  Miirren,  the  Bay  of  Naples,  the  Grand 
Canyon  of  the  Colorado,  or  the  view  from  Acro-Corinth? 
As  a  patriotic  American  I  could  cheerfully  vote  for  the  Grand 
Canyon,  but  the  truth  is,  I  prefer  Acro-Corinth.  To  speak 
less  cryptically,  I  think  the  "  Iliad  "  peerless  among  the  folk- 
epics.  It  yields  a  steadier  and  a  more  varied  pleasure  than 
any  of  the  others.  If  Homer  sometimes  nods,  the  others 
take  long  naps,  during  which  they  are  rather  dull  companions 
for  the  modern  man,  unless  he  be  some  kind  of  a  speciaUst. 
This  is  certainly  true  of  the  ''Nibelung  Lay."  On  the  other 
hand,  in  the  capital  quality  of  power,  the  quahty  which  in 
sculpture  we  associate  with  the  name  of  Michael  Angelo, 
there  are  parts  of  the ' '  Lay  "  which  have  hardly  been  surpassed 
anywhere.  And  however  the  poem  as  a  whole  may  affect  the 
esthetic  sensibilities  of  the  present  day,  it  is  a  precious  record 
of  the  old  German  spirit  and  of  medieval  German  life.  Unique, 
strong,  boldly  linmed,  and  permeated  with  a  dark  fatahsm, 
it  takes  the  imagination  captive,  and  its  pictures  of  fierce 
passion  and  ruthless  conduct  haunt  the  memory  with  the 
vividness  of  reality. 

Following  the  "  Nibelung  Lay"  there  is  a  considerable  body 
of  indigenous  German  minstrelsy  which  has  its  interest  for 
the  scholar,  but  cannot  be  allowed  to  detain  us  on  the  present 
occasion.  And  then  came  a  long  stretch  of  time  during 
which  the  Germans  made  no  very  important  contributions  to 
Literature.  Poetic  genius  of  a  high  order  failed  to  appear, 
and  what  got  written  in  the  German  language  was,  for  the 
most  part,  ignored  by  the  rest  of  Europe.  There  are,  indeed, 
a  few  books,  notably  Brant's  "Ship  of  Fools"  and  the  chap- 
book  of  Doctor  Faust,  which  played  a  role  on  the  interna- 
tional stage;  but  neither  of  these  can  justly  be  called  a  Uterary 
masterpiece.     And  then  there  is  the  majestic  figure  of  Luther; 


302  GERMAN   LITERATURE 

but  Luther  belongs  to  the  history  of  reUgion,  rather  than  to 
the  history  of  what  we  call  Literature.  The  Italian  Renais- 
sance, which  wrought  such  marvels  elsewhere,  found  Germany 
politically  disintegrated,  without  an  intellectual  center,  largely 
obUvious  of  its  own  past,  and  with  no  generally  accepted 
literary  language.  It  was  necessary  to  begin  anew,  so  to 
speak,  and  the  new  beginning  was  retarded  by  the  fierce 
and  all-absorbing  contentions  of  the  Protestant  revolt.  Of 
course,  the  continuity  of  history  was  not  entirely  broken; 
such  a  thing  as  that  would  be  inconceivable.  There  is  a 
body  of  Literature  —  I  am  thinking  more  especially  of  Hans 
Sachs  —  which  continues  old  tradition  and  at  the  same  time 
is  not  unaffected  by  the  ideas  of  the  Renaissance.  But  it  is 
a  homespun  literature,  without  great  thoughts,  without 
imaginative  sweep,  without  artistic  distinction  or  exaltation 
of  feeling.  The  Niirnberg  shoemaker  is  a  winsome  poet  in 
his  way,  and  very  interesting  as  a  mirror  of  German  life  in 
the  sixteenth  century;  but  the  reader  of  Sophocles,  Shak- 
spere,  and  Mohere  will  not  miss  very  much  in  ignoring  him. 

When  at  last,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  the  German  soil 
was  prepared  for  a  race  of  scholar-poets  who  knew  what  had 
been  going  on  elsewhere,  were  proud  of  their  mother-tongue, 
and  eager  to  give  their  country  a  place  among  the  literary 
great  powers,  their  ambition  spent  itself  on  reproduction. 
They  exerted  themselves  to  prove  that  they  could  do,  in  regu- 
lar and  dignified  German  verse,  what  the  French,  the  Italians, 
and  the  Dutch  had  already  done.  But  the  Renaissance  was 
by  this  time  an  old  story;  it  had  done  its  work,  and  Europe 
was  ready  for  something  new,  something  which  Germany 
was  not  yet  prepared  to  give.  And  yet,  let  us  not  think 
too  meanly  of  that  pseudo-classic  period  as  one  of  unrelieved 
artificiality  and  imitation.  There  are  some  real  poets  there, 
with  minor  messages  and  melodious  voices;  and  there  is 
one  prose-writer,  Grimmelshausen,  who  is  worth  reading. 
But  there  are  no  really  commanding  literary  personalities. 


GERMAN  LITERATURE  303 

And  now,  how  shall  I  describe  the  spirit  of  the  new  epoch 
which  finally  gave  to  Germany  not  only  a  place,  but  for  a 
while  the  leading  place,  in  the  literary  world? 

The  Itahan  Renaissance  had  conquered  for  Western  Europe, 
not  indeed  for  the  plain  people,  but  for  the  choicer  spirits 
everywhere,  the  right  to  live.  The  instincts  and  passions 
of  human  nature,  the  love  of  beauty  and  of  self-assertion,  no 
longer  seemed  dangerous  lures  of  the  devil,  beguiling  the  soul 
to  eternal  suffering.  But  the  literary  expression  of  this 
abounding  life  had  everywhere  fallen  under  the  blight  of  an 
all  too  rigid  formalism.  There  was  a  disposition  to  hark 
back;  to  lay  too  much  stress  on  the  rules  of  the  ancients, 
and  not  enough  on  the  eternal  right  of  the  human  soul  to 
self-expression.  The  Reformation  had  freed  men,  pretty  gen- 
erally, from  the  intellectual  tyranny  of  the  medieval  Church, 
but  had  itself  given  rise,  in  many  quarters,  to  a  narrow  and 
pugnacious  bibliolatry.  The  misunderstood  and  ignorantly 
worshiped  word  of  Scripture  was  killing  the  vital  spirit  of 
religion.  The  philosophers  had  won  a  large  measure  of  intel- 
lectual Hberty;  the  active  brain  was  no  longer  confronted  by 
the  awful  peril  of  the  burning  fagot  or  the  Spanish  boot ;  but 
they  were  a  little  too  much  inclined  to  overlook  all  that  part 
of  human  nature  which  underlies  and  antedates  the  reason- 
ing faculty. 

What  use  was  to  be  made  of  all  the  liberties  and  knowl- 
edges that  had  been  won?  Was  the  homo  sapiens  to  be, 
after  all,  but  a  free  and  joyous  animal,  with  a  respect  for  an- 
tiquity and  a  taste  for  art?  Was  his  religious  nature  to  be 
evermore  shut  up  to  a  choice  between  the  worship  of  a  hier- 
archy and  the  worship  of  a  book?  Was  there  a  necessary 
conflict  between  his  intellect  and  his  emotions,  between  his 
social  obligation  and  his  individual  welfare? 

We  see  that  there  was  need  of  a  new  synthesis  of  all  that  had 
been  gained,  a  synthesis  that  should  take  account  of  the 
whole  of  human  nature  and  turn  the  thoughts  of  men  from 


304  GERMAN  LITERATURE 

the  Past  to  the  Future.  I  am  one  of  those  who  hold  that  the 
eighteenth  century,  much  as  it  has  been  derided  by  a  certain 
class  of  writers,  is  on  the  whole  the  most  important  century 
in  human  history.  The  cleavage  that  was  then  effected 
between  the  votaries  of  authority  and  the  votaries  of  progress 
—  between  the  men  who  look  inward  and  backward,  and  the 
men  who  look  outward  and  forward  —  is  the  most  momen- 
tous of  historical  events. 

Now  it  is  Germany's  distinction  that,  just  at  the  fullness  of 
time,  her  soil  brought  forth  a  group  of  great  writers  whose 
work  gives  the  first  large  and  luminous  answer  to  the  questions 
I  have  formulated.  Foremost  among  them  stands  the  man 
of  whom  Emerson  said  that  "  the  old  Eternal  Genius  that  built 
the  world  had  confided  itself  more  to  him  than  to  any  other." 
Any  of  the  group  would  have  made  any  epoch  memorable; 
that  this  epoch  has  become  supremely  memorable  is  due  to 
the  radiant  genius  of  Goethe. 

In  Literature,  if  not  in  the  domain  of  physical  magnitude, 
the  whole  may  be  greater  than  the  sum  of  the  parts.  One 
who  takes  up  the  various  writings  of  Goethe  and  compares 
them,  one  after  the  other,  with  the  very  best  that  has  ever 
been  done  in  their  several  kinds,  will  find  nowhere,  perhaps, 
an  absolute  maximum  of  achievement.  Let  "  Faust "  be 
excepted,  for  "  Faust  "  is  incommensurable;  there  is  nothing 
else  like  it  anywhere.  But  take  "  Gotz  von  BerHchingen  ": 
surely  it  is  a  splendid  manifesto  of  youthful  genius,  vigorous, 
captivating,  "  rammed  with  life."  So  too,  "  Iphigenia  "  and 
"Tasso"  are  exquisite  dramas  of  the  soul.  But  in  respect  of 
dramatic  power  and  universality  of  appeal  these  plays  must 
hide  their  diminished  heads  in  the  presence  of  Shakspere. 
Again,  ''  Werther  "  is  a  better  sentimental  novel  than  any  one 
else  wrote  in  the  sentimental  age,  but  it  is  a  study  in  mental 
morbidity.  ' '  Wilhelm  Meister ' '  is  surcharged  with  wise  obser- 
vation, but  lacking  in  artistic  finaUty. 

And  so  one  might  traverse  the  remainder  of  Goethe's  work, 


GERMAN  LITERATURE  305 

his  lighter  plays  and  tales,  his  narrative  poems,  his  scientific 
writings,  his  critical  papers,  his  biographies,  including  *'Dich- 
tung  und  Wahrheit,"  and  find  everywhere  profound  thought 
and  literary  distinction,  but  nowhere,  perhaps,  that  which  bears 
the  indisputable  mark  of  a  supreme  excellence.  What,  then, 
is  the  secret  of  his  power  over  those  who  know?  Of  the 
perermial  fascination  that  invests  his  life  and  work?  It  is 
to  be  sought  in  the  totality  of  his  career;  in  the  marvelously 
instructive  evolution  of  his  many-sided  nature  from  youth  to 
age;  in  the  way  he  ''  beat  his  music  out "  under  the  impact  of 
experience  from  year  to  year;  in  his  loyalty  to  the  Genius  of 
Life,  and  his  splendid  endeavor  to  envisage  the  world  ever 
more  broadly  and  more  sanely. 

Taken  thus  in  his  entirety,  Goethe  stands  for  a  larger  and 
deeper  synthesis  of  life  than  the  world  had  previously  known. 
Little  by  little  he  gathered  up  into  the  crucible  of  his  mind 
all  the  great  values  which  the^ast  had  contributed  to  the 
upbuilding  and  enrichment  of  the  human  soul,  and  fused  them 
into  a  new  spiritual  treasure.  His  childhood  was  nourished 
on  the  Bible,  and  his  youth  was  deeply  stirred  by  the  mystic 
appeal  of  the  Christian  faith.  Then  came,  in  the  prime  of 
his  manhood,  the  glory  that  was  Greece,  with  all  that  Hellenism 
implies  for  the  modern  man;  the  Italian  Renaissance,  with 
its  passion  for  ideal  and  sensuous  beauty;  science,  with  its 
endless  vistas  of  heights  to  be  won  by  laborious  investigation ; 
the  idea  of  evolution,  dimly  glimpsed,  it  is  true,  and  lacking 
the  definite  proofs  that  Darwin  was  to  furnish,  but  clear 
enough  to  reveal  to  him  its  tremendous  import,  and  to  become 
henceforth  the  pivot  of  all  his  thinking.  Add  to  all  this  the 
strenuous  discipline  of  long  public  service  during  one  of  the 
most  pregnant  epochs  in  human  history.  What  other  writer 
of  books  ever  hved  so  much  as  did  Goethe? 

It  might  seem,  perhaps,  as  if  all  those  multifarious  distrac- 
tions must  have  thwarted  the  vocation  of  the  poet.  And  so  it 
was,  no  doubt,  to  some  extent.     There  are  periods  in  which 


306  GERMAN   LITERATURE 

the  reader  of  Goethe's  diary  and  letters  may  get  an  almost 
painful  impression  of  magnificent  strength  frittered  away  on 
futihties.  But  while  we  indulge  in  that  melancholy  reflection, 
let  us  at  any  rate  not  forget  the  countervailing  gain.  The 
immense  prestige  of  Goethe  as  a  critic  of  Ufe  rests  on  his 
broad  and  intimate  knowledge  of  the  subject.  To  call  him, 
as  Herman  Grimm  did,  the  greatest  poet  of  all  times  and  of 
all  nations,  seems  to  me,  as  it  seemed  to  Matthew  Arnold, 
a  patriotic  hyperbole.  But  to  call  him  the  wisest  of  poets  is 
sober  truth.  That  which  has  endeared  him  to  scientific 
men  —  for  he  is  preeminently  their  poet  —  is  not  the  work 
he  did  in  half  a  dozen  lines  of  investigation,  but  the  general 
sanity  of  his  mind.  The  poetic  frenzy  tends  usually  to  pas- 
sionate overstatement,  involving  some  sacrifice  of  truth. 
England  has  lately  lost  a  wonderful  master  of  verbal  witcher- 
ies, and  we  love  to  quote  him  for  the  scintillant  beauty  of  his 
phrase.  But  what  strange  opinions  Swinburne  sometimes 
expressed!  Not  thus  with  the  great  German.  If  you  find 
it  in  Goethe,  it  is  so. 

Do  I  seem  to  be  saying  that  the  greatness  of  Goethe  was 
that  of  a  sage  rather  than  a  poet?  I  would  not  be  under- 
stood exactly  in  that  way.  To  be  sure,  it  does  not  grieve 
me,  as  an  individual  Goethefreund,  to  hear  him  classed  with 
the  sages;  for  I  hold  that  "  wise  man"  is  on  the  whole  a  more 
august  title  than  "poet."  Not  the  impassioned  dreamer; 
not  the  prophet,  the  orator,  the  artist,  the  warrior,  the  states- 
man, or  the  empire-builder,  but  the  wise  man,  is  thus  far  the 
noblest  product  of  evolution  on  this  planet.  Still,  I  know 
that  many  would  take  issue  with  me  on  that  point.  Consid- 
ering the  fallibility  of  man's  wisdom  at  its  best,  they  would 
assign  the  highest  place  in  the  hierarchy  of  spirits  to  the 
"poet,"  who  voices  his  vital  experience  in  rhythmic  words  of 
supreme  fitness  and  imperishable  power.  I  believe  I  under- 
stand that  point  of  view.  Let  us  not  forget,  however,  that 
Poetry,  in  a  large  historical  survey  of  the  subject,  is  a  thing  of 


GERMAN  LITERATURE  307 

Protean  aspect,  which  has  always  resisted  exact  definition. 
Our  English  usage  makes  much  of  the  metrical  factor,  the 
"  poet"  being  first  of  all  a  maker  of  verse.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  German  dichten  hardly  connotes  meter  at  all,  but  lays 
chief  stress  on  the  element  of  imaginative  creation. 

Now  if  the  poet,  in  the  essence  of  his  being,  is  an  imagina- 
tive creator,  and  if  what  he  creates  has  great  importance  for 
the  understanding  and  the  conduct  of  life,  then  he  becomes  a 
"sage";  differing,  however,  from  other  sages,  from  the  mere 
savant,  man  of  science,  or  philosopher,  by  precisely  that 
element  of  imaginative  warmth,  without  which  the  wisdom  of 
the  wise  rarely  goes  home  to  the  deep  places  of  human  nature. 
In  such  case  his  wisdom,  instead  of  being  a  reproach  to  his 
poetry,  is  the  perfect  flowering  of  it. 

Such,  in  effect,  was  Goethe's  conception  of  the  poet's  call- 
ing, as  we  find  it  in  those  famous  lines  of  the  Prelude  to 
"Faust":  — 

"Wodurch  bewegt  er  alle  Herzen? 
Wodurch  besiegt  er  jedes  Element  ? 
1st  es  der  Einklang  nicht,  der  aus  dem  Busen  dringt, 
Und  in  sein  Herz  die  Welt  zuriicke  schlingt  ?  " 

The  passage  goes  on  to  say  that  the  poet  is  he  who  gathers  up 
into  his  soul  the  facts  of  life,  in  their  tiresome  monotony  and 
their  jangling  discord,  and  gives  them  back  in  the  form  of  a 
S3anphony,  — 

"Wo  es  in  herrlichen  Accorden  schlagt." 

Put  in  somewhat  different  words,  this  means  that  the  poet's 
function  is  to  reconcile  us  to  the  Power  that  made  and  makes 
the  world;  to  keep  us  on  a  friendly  footing  with  the  Genius 
of  Life,  by  permitting  us  to  see  through  the  phenomenal  veil 
of  discord  and  ugliness  to  the  essential  harmony,  the  ever- 
lasting goodness. 


308  GERMAN  LITERATURE 

I  would  by  no  means  assert  that  Goethe  was  always  true 
to  this  ideal,  or  that  everything  he  wrote  was  inspired  by  it. 
Like  other  men,  he  was  the  child  of  his  epoch  and  of  his  cir- 
cumstances. He  had  his  limitations,  and  he  made  his  mistakes. 
Were  this  not  so,  we  should  hardly  care  for  him  as  we  do; 
for,  as  he  himself  said,  it  is  a  man's  mistakes  that  make  him 
lovable.  No  more  than  other  men  was  he  always  up  to  his 
own  highest  level.  He  had  his  private  battle  to  wage  with 
the  goblins  of  pessimism,  with  the  misere  of  trivial  existence. 
Much  that  he  wrote,  in  the  course  of  his  long  life,  was  tenta- 
tive, uninspired,  of  transitory  interest.  But  take  him  all  in 
all,  his  writings  do  illustrate  and  accord  with  the  doctrine 
that  I  have  tried,  in  my  imperfect  way,  to  describe.  It  forms 
the  heart  of  "Faust";  "Wilhelm  Meister"  is  saturated  with 
it;  it  sings  in  many  a  lyric.  It  informs  that  "calm,  free,  and 
onward"  spirit  which  lends  such  an  imperishable  interest  to 
the  afternoon  and  evening  of  his  life. 

I  have  left  little  time  for  the  other  great  writers  of  the  classic 
era;  for  Lessing,  the  superb  critic,  for  Herder,  the  inspired 
pathfinder,  or  for  Schiller,  the  beloved  idealist.  None  of 
these  men  measures  up  to  the  stature  of  Goethe  as  a  world- 
author,  but  each  did  a  work  of  such  far-reaching  importance 
in  modern  life  that  one  may  well  shrink  from  the  attempt  to 
describe  it  in  a  few  words.  Only  a  hint  or  two  can  be  given. 
So  far  as  I  know,  Lessing  was  the  first  great  critic  to  write  of 
religion  in  a  spirit  at  once  fearless,  reverent,  scholarly,  and 
broadly  human,  that  is,  free  from  all  ecclesiastic  bias.  In 
"  Nathan  the  Wise"  his  critical  gift  rose  to  the  height  of  creative 
genius.  It  is  the  most  pregnant  and  irresistible  of  all  modern 
dramas  having  a  specifically  religious  import.  Fresh  and 
real  to-day  as  when  it  was  first  published,  that  eloquent  plea 
for  tolerance,  practical  goodness,  and  human  brotherhood,  is  a 
very  precious  world-classic. 

And  what  a  world  of  fruitful  ideas  first  took  shape  in  the 
teeming  mind  of  Herder!    He  was  the  real  father  of  the 


GERMAN  LITERATURE  309 

"  historical  method."  It  was  he,  and  not  a  nineteenth-century 
Frenchman,  who  first  clearly  enmiciated  the  doctrine  of  the 
''race,  the  epoch,  and  the  surroundings."  He  was  a  pioneer 
in  the  due  appreciation  of  primitive  culture  and  of  the  poetry 
of  unlettered  men.  The  whole  Romantic  School  is  prefigured 
in  his  writings.  He  opened  new  vistas  in  the  understanding 
of  the  Hebrew  Bible,  and  he  first  developed  the  great  thought 
that  the  goal  of  the  historic  process  is  the  training  of  man  for 
humanity.  There  is  a  spot  in  the  Black  Forest  where  the 
rain  which  falls  at  a  certain  point  goes  into  the  Danube  and 
the  Black  Sea;  but  if  it  falls  a  few  feet  away,  it  goes  into 
the  Rhine  and  the  German  Ocean.  Standing  at  this  apex, 
the  traveler  may  well  have  the  sensation  of  being  at  the  source 
of  great  things.  Some  such  feeling  I  used  to  have  at  Weimar, 
as  I  wandered  among  the  places  where  Herder  lived  and 
wrought,  or  paused  in  my  walk  to  look  at  his  statue,  with  its 
noble  inscription,  "  Light,  Love,  Life." 

But  with  all  his  opulence  of  ideas.  Herder  was  an  indifferent 
artist,  whether  in  verse  or  prose;  wherefore  it  is  well  for  us,  if 
not  so  well  for  his  own  fame,  that  what  he  had  to  say  was  in 
the  main  better  said  by  his  two  illustrious  friends.  It  is 
the  prime  distinction  of  Schiller  to  have  made  himself  beloved 
in  a  peculiar  degree  as  a  poetic  idealist.  Freedom,  Truth, 
Beauty,  are  invested  in  his  glowing  and  sonorous  fines  with 
a  high  and  alluring  significance.  The  temper  of  our  time  and 
country  is  rather  cool  toward  such  abstractions.  We  look 
on  them  somewhat  as  we  look  on  the  white  and  filmy  clouds 
that  float  high  in  the  June  sky,  as  bright  and  beautiful,  but 
unsubstantial  and  not  well  suited  for  human  nature's  daily 
food.  We  go  in  for  specific  practical  betterment,  and  we  are 
a  little  suspicious  of  vague  dreams  and  the  rapt  dreamer. 
Nevertheless  we  perceive,  in  our  moments  of  insight,  that 
these  more  or  less  ethereal  ideals,  and  our  willingness  to  work 
for  them,  are  what  gives  dignity  to  life  and  lifts  us  above  the 
brutes  that  perish.    Without  our  dreams,   our  faiths,  our 


310  GERMAN   LITERATURE 

ideal  objects  of  devotion  and  aspiration,  we  are  but  featherless 
bipeds  who  have  somehow  learned  to  talk  and  to  make  tools. 
The  improvement  of  our  tools,  our  food,  our  clothes,  and  hous- 
ing, may  be  worth  attending  to,  —  it  is  worth  attending  to,  — 
but  chiefly  as  a  means  of  releasing  our  energies  for  that 
spiritual  betterment,  the  hope  of  which  is  the  best  part  of  our 
human  heritage  and  the  noblest  incentive  of  the  modern  man. 
Now  this  was  clearly  seen  and  deeply  felt  by  Schiller,  who 
expressed  it  not  only  in  philosophic  writings  which  are  caviare 
to  the  general,  but  also  in  poems  and  plays  which  have  become 
household  lore  for  the  German  people.  By  the  high  serious- 
ness of  his  life  and  his  unwavering  fealty  to  the  unseen  things 
which  are  eternal,  he  accredited  his  message  for  all  who  know 
him.  This  is  why  we  love  him.  This  is  why  his  name  has 
become  a  name  to  conjure  with  in  every  part  of  the  world 
where  Germans  are  gathered  together. 


XVI 

RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

By  J.  A.  JoFFE,  Lecturer  in  Russian 

In  the  Pantheon  of  Literature  the  writers  of  Russia  have 
been  accorded,  within  the  last  thirty  years,  a  niche  by  the 
side  of  the  supreme  heaven-dwellers  of  that  temple.  The 
phenomenon  is  all  the  more  remarkable  when  one  remembers 
that  it  is  practically  within  this  brief  period,  about  a  genera- 
tion and  a  half,  roughly  speaking,  that  the  outside  nations 
have  made  the  acquaintance  of  Russian  Literature. 

The  hold  it  laid  upon  the  non-Russian  reading  pubHc  was 
instantaneous,  firm,  and  persistent.  Foreign  observers  of 
literary  phenomena  were  amazed  at  its  sudden  sweep  and 
force.  One  of  its  greatest  admirers  (Ferdinand  Brunetiere) 
records  that  for  a  time  matters  threatened  to  reach  a  point 
when  the  well-known  yellow-covered  volume  in  the  hands 
of  a  Frenchman  could  be  almost  safely  assumed  to  be  the 
work  of  one  of  the  chief  Russian  novelists,  —  such  was  the 
vogue  of  the  conquering  barbarians. 

Are  these  Russians  "barbarians  or  are  they  saints"? — those 
were  exactly  the  words  used  by  French  critics  in  attempting 
to  fathom  the  causes  of  the  sudden  tide  of  interest  in  Russian 
Literature  in  France.  The  critics  were  seized  with  the  im- 
pression that  Russian  authors  did  not  merely  write  novels,  but 
celebrated  mass  as  it  were,  with  the  "why  and  wherefore" 
ever  present  in  all  they  wrote.  There  was  a  strange  fascina- 
tion in  the  "new  gospel"  these  writers  were  preaching.  In 
their  works  new  horizons  and  a  new  world  were  being  opened 
to  the  astonished  gaze  of  their  Western  European  readers. 

311 


312  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

Was  this  unprecedented  success  the  result  of  a  mere  whim 
of  literary  taste  among  the  jaded  and  volatile  Frenchmen? 
Its  persistence  and  its  rapid  conquest  of  the  reading  public 
throughout  the  world  preclude  a  negative  answer  to  our 
question. 

It  was  the  new  world,  both  of  men  and  of  emotions,  into 
which  the  foreign  reader  was  introduced,  and  it  was  the  new 
spiritual  attitude  of  the  Russian  writers  that  supplied  the 
real  cause  of  the  conquering  march  of  Russian  Literature. 

What  are  the  peculiar  traits  that  exercised  such  a  potent 
influence  on  the  foreigner?  A  more  or  less  satisfactory  an- 
swer can  be  given  only  when  a  thorough  examination  is  made 
of  the  country  and  the  people  that  produced  this  Literature. 
Have  they  not  grown  trite,  these  dicta  that  "Literature  is  the 
mirror  of  the  spiritual  hfe  of  a  nation,"  that  "the  literary  his- 
tory of  a  nation  is  the  history  of  the  nation's  psychology,"  etc.? 

Geographically,  Russia  (European,  I  mean  chiefly)  is  one 
vast  plain  with  hardly  an  elevation  within  its  confines.  It 
has  a  negligible  length  of  seacoast  (particularly  navigable 
for  a  considerable  part  of  the  year)  and  several  sluggish,  if 
majestic,  rivers.  Thus,  while  presenting  practically  no  natural 
barrier  to  foreign  incursions,  Russia,  on  the  other  hand,  has 
enjoyed  the  advantage  of  easy  communication  among  the 
various  tribal  and  racial  elements  that  composed  it.  For 
centuries,  it  is  true,  such  relations  were  far  from  amicable,  yet 
the  fact  stands  that  intercourse  was  free  and  easily  achieved. 
Again,  the  absence  of  mountain  barriers  on  the  North  placed 
no  obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  icy  winds  from  the  Arctic  Sea, 
and  though  the  southernmost  regions  of  Russia,  such  as  the 
Crimea  and  Caucasus,  may  be  a  land  of  olives  and  oranges, 
there  is  unbroken  winter  with  permanent  snow-roads  and 
sleighs  and  sleighbells  for  several  months  even  in  the  South, 
following  upon  the  scorching  heat  of  summer.  And  this 
contrast  in  temperature  has  tended  but  to  make  the  Russian 
physique  more  rugged  and  inured  to  hardships. 


RUSSIAN  LITERATURE  313 

Ethnologically,  the  ancient  Slavs  were  longheads,  while 
the  various  Finnish  and  Mongolian  races  were  chief!}''  of  the 
broadhead  type.  At  present  the  Russians  present  both  types, 
with  the  intermediate  mesocephalic  form,  and  they  are  darker 
of  eye  and  hair  than  might  be  gathered  from  descriptions  in 
classical  and  medieval  authors. 

The  history  of  Russia  is  usually  dated  from  862,  when, 
tired  of  continuous  squabbles  and  wars,  the  natives  of  Nov- 
gorod in  the  North  called  a  Norse  tribe,  the  Russ,  "to  come 
and  rule,  for  our  land  is  great  and  abundant,  but  order  it  has 
none."  In  time  the  bold  Viking  princes  sailed  down  the 
Dnieper  (where  the  capital,  Kieff,  was  situated),  and  even 
stood  at  the  gates  of  Constantinople,  which  they  left  after 
collecting  rich  tribute.  From  Byzantium  the  Russian  prince 
Vladimir  introduced  Christianity  (985),  after  refusing  the 
overtures  of  Mohammedan  missionaries  because  of  their 
opposition  to  the  use  of  spirituous  liquors,  as  "the  joy  of  the 
Russians  is  [in]  drinking."  Under  the  Byzantine  priesthood, 
monasteries  were  founded,  schools  established,  a  primitive 
Literature  (liturgical,  patristic,  and  annaUstic)  chiefl}^  of 
translations,  but  at  times  original  as  well,  sprang  up;  the 
common  law  was  codified,  and  intercourse  and  even  inter- 
marriage with  the  ruling  houses  of  Western  Europe  grew  up 
during  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries.  The  Slavic  system 
of  dividing  up  principalities  among  all  the  sons  and  bestowing 
the  chief  authority  on  the  oldest  in  the  house,  i.e.  seniority 
of  the  brothers  over  the  sons  of  the  deceased,  split  up  Russia 
into  innumerable  petty  domains  which  were  in  constant  war- 
fare with  one  another.  Conspiracies  and  parricidal  exploits 
went  on  for  centuries.  The  Tartar  Invasion  (1224-1237) 
found  Russia  in  no  condition  to  resist  it,  and  for  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  the  invaders  trampled  the  Russians  under 
foot,  encouraging  internecine  war  among  the  princes,  selling 
for  a  price  the  thrones  and  lives  of  rulers  to  their  less  scrupulous 
and  wealthier  rivals.     They  humiliated  the  rulers  by  enforced 


314  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

visits  to  pay  homage  to  the  Tartar  Khans  and  enslaved, 
tortured,  and  massacred,  the  populace.  Intermarriage  be- 
tween Russians  and  Tartars,  both  forcible  and  voluntary, 
became  quite  common.  Asiatic  customs,  pohcies,  methods 
of  government,  and  criminal  justice  blotted  out  whatever 
Western  culture  had  been  acquired  by  Russia  and  reduced 
the  Russians  almost  to  the  invaders'  own  level  of  barbarism. 
Yet  in  those  dark  times  a  line  of  shrewd  princes  at  Moscow 
brought  that  obscure  town  to  the  forefront  and  made  it  Rus- 
sia's rallying-point.  From  Moscow  the  final  expedition  against 
the  Tartars  was  made  in  1480,  and  their  Khanates  on  the 
Volga  were  added  to  Russia  some  seventy  years  later.  In 
1547  John  IV,  the  Terrible,  was  crowned  Tsar  of  Russia, 
after  more  than  two  centuries  of  "gathering  together  of 
Russia"  on  the  part  of  the  Muscovite  princes,  in  the  course 
of  which  teachers,  artisans,  artists,  and  architects  from 
Western  Europe  were  brought  in.  In  1597  the  peasants  were 
fastened  to  the  soil,  serfdom  was  established,  and  in  1654 
Little  (Southern)  Russia  joined  the  realm  of  the  Muscovite 
Tsars. 

By  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  Moscow  had  a  large 
colony  of  foreigners  skilled  in  all  manner  of  trades,  quartered 
in  the  so-called  German  (  =  foreign)  Village,  a  suburb  of  the 
capital.  Here  Peter  the  Great  was  initiated  into  European 
military  methods  and  the  art  of  navigation  and  conceived 
the  idea  of  pursuing  his  studies  in  Holland  incognito.  On 
his  return  he  made  up  his  mind  "to  cut  a  window  to  Europe  " 
by  founding  St.  Petersburg  (1703)  and  making  it  his  capital. 
Peter  I  ruled  Russia  Uterally  with  a  "big  stick"  and  forced 
Western  European  dress,  customs,  schools,  books,  as  well  as 
a  reformed  alphabet,  upon  his  unwilling  subjects.  His  final 
triumph  over  that  royal  knight-errant,  Charles  XII  of  Sweden, 
made  Russia  a  European  power  to  be  reckoned  with,  and 
Peter  assumed  the  title  of  Emperor  of  all  the  Russias. 
During  the  reigns  of  his  female  successors,  German  influences 


RUSSIAN   LITERATURE  315 

were  all  powerful  in  all  departments  of  life,  but  the  wars  with 
Frederick  the  Great  brought  on  a  reaction,  and  with  Catherine 
II  (1762-1796)  a  long  line  of  Russian  court-favorites  begins. 
From  that  time  Gallomania  becomes  rampant.  The  restless 
"Semiramis  of  the  North"  established  numerous  commissions 
for  effecting  radical  reforms  both  governmental  and  social. 
She  coquetted  with  the  Uberal  ideas  of  the  Encyclopedists, 
and  carried  on  a  voluminous  correspondence  with  Voltaire  and 
Diderot.  No  sooner  had  the  liberal  seeds  begun  to  sprout 
than  the  Empress  became  reactionary  in  the  extreme,  eradicat- 
ing "plots  "and  "  revolution  "  with  a  hand  that  knew  no  mercy. 
But  during  the  few  liberal  years  of  her  reign  Russian  life  pul- 
sated with  great  intensity. 

The  Empress  herself  wrote  more  than  a  score  of  comedies, 
dramatic  sketches,  and  operatic  librettos,  all  fully  national  in 
subject  and  genuinely  popular  in  language  and  treatment, 
quite  a  contrast  to  the  artificial  pseudo-classicism  prevalent 
for  nearly  half  a  century.  Under  Alexander  I  (1801-1825) 
Russia  experienced  a  process  of  liberal  reforms  during  the 
first  half  of  the  reign,  and  rabid  reaction  in  the  latter  half. 
During  their  march  upon  Paris  and  their  sojourn  there,  in 
the  course  of  the  Napoleonic  Wars,  the  Russians  had  absorbed 
too  many  liberal  ideas  to  suit  the  victorious  Emperor,  and 
the  Holy  Alliance  was  the  result.  Thenceforth  Russia  be- 
came part  and  parcel  of  Europe  in  her  politics  and  in  her 
Literature.  Nicholas  I  (1825-1855)  still  further  curtailed  the 
hberties  of  his  subjects,  but  police  tyranny  and  the  censorship 
reached  their  highest  point  after  the  days  of  1848.  The  last 
seven  years  of  his  reign  were  the  "Darkest  Age"  of  Russian 
Literature.  The  liberal  beginnings  of  Alexander  II  (1855- 
1881)  brought  "the  Sixties,"  the  culminating  point  in  Russian 
Literature,  followed  by  the  great  movement  of  "going  to  the 
people"  in  the  Seventies.  Reaction  of  a  severity  almost 
equaling  the  period  of  1848-1855  set  in  with  Alexander  III 
(1881-1894).    The  rule  of  Nicholas  II,  characterized  by  Hague 


316  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

Peace  Conferences  before  the  World  and  "Red  Sundays"  at 
home,  is  of  to-day  and  need  not  be  dwelt  upon. 

Such  has  been  Russia's  history,  the  foundation  on  which  its 
Literature  was  reared.  The  instrument  in  question,  the 
Russian  language,  has  had  enough  admirers  to  save  one  the 
delicate  task  of  rhapsody,  though  a  tolerable  acquaintance 
with  several  modem  tongues  and  familiarity  with  the  lan- 
guages of  Greece  and  Rome  would  seem  to  warrant  having  an 
opinion  on  the  subject. 

LomonosofT,  "Russia's  First  University"  in  Pushkin's  fe- 
licitous phrase,  one  of  the  world's  few  all-embracing  geniuses 
of  the  type  of  Aristotle  and  Leibniz,  with  the  gift  of  poetry 
in  the  bargain,  says,  in  the  Dedication  of  his  Russian  Grammar 
(1755) :  — 

"  Charles  V,  Emperor  of  Rome,  was  wont  to  say  that  it  b  proper 
to  address  oneself  in  Spanish  to  God,  in  French  to  friends,  in  German 
to  the  enemy,  and  in  Italian  to  the  female  sex.  Had  he  been 
skilled  in  (the  knowledge  of)  Russian,  he  would  doubtless  have 
added  that  in  the  last  named  it  behooves  one  to  speak  to  all  the 
above.  For  therein  he  would  have  found  the  magnificence  of 
Spanish,  the  vivacity  of  French,  the  strength  of  German,  the  ten- 
derness of  Italian,  and,  besides,  the  opulence  of  Greek  and  Latin 
and  their  forceful  gift  for  concise  imagery.  The  powerful  eloquence 
of  Cicero,  the  magnificent  stateliness  of  Virgil,  the  pleasing  poesy  of 
Ovid,  do  not  lose  their  worth  in  Russian.  The  finest  philosophical 
concepts  and  reasoning,  the  multiform  properties  and  changes  of 
nature  occurring  in  this  visible  edifice  of  the  universe  and  in  the  in- 
tercourse among  men  as  well,  have,  in  our  tongue,  locutions  befitting 
and  expressing  the  matter." 

Over  a  hundred  years  later,  Turgenieff,  a  master  of  the 
principal  modem  languages,  thus  voiced  his  admiration  for 
Russian :  — 

"  In  days  of  doubt,  in  days  of  distressing  meditations  on  the  fate 
of  my  country,  in  thee  alone  I  trust,  O  Russian  language,  great, 
mighty,  truthful,  free"  .  .  . 


RUSSIAN   LITERATURE  317 

"But  it  is  impossible  to  believe  that  such  a  language  was  not 
given  to  a  great  people." 

An  opinion  fully  indorsed  by  a  Frenchman,  De  Vogiie, 
who  says,  "The  Russian  Language  is  undoubtedly  the  richest 
of  all  the  European  tongues." 

Of  the  three  distinct  varieties  (into  which  Russian,  roughly 
speaking,  is  subdivided),  the  "Little  Russian"  in  the  South 
of  Russia,  "White  Russian"  in  the  Western  provinces  border- 
ing on  Germany  and  around  the  Baltic  coast,  and  "Great 
Russian  "  spoken  in  the  rest  of  Russia  by  nearly  seventy  million 
souls,  —  this  last  is  the  literary  language,  the  speech  of 
Moscow  being  its  purest  form.  On  the  other  hand,  St.  Peters- 
burg, from  a  literary  point  of  view,  is  even  more  than  the 
Paris  of  Russia,  for  every  writer  of  note,  no  matter  where 
born,  has  gravitated  to  the  capital;  and  this  has  given  an 
additional  impulse  towards  a  single  literary  language. 

With  these  physical,  historical,  and  political  conditions, 
Russia  presents  certain  special  psychological  characteristics 
which,  in  part  at  least,  are  the  result  of  such  conditions. 

This  huge  expanse  of  earth's  surface,  often  without  a  single 
tree  for  hundreds  of  miles,  with  only  a  carpet  of  grass  in 
summer  and  a  thick  mantle  of  snow  in  winter,  makes  the 
Russian  self-centered  and  contemplative,  with  a  strong  ten- 
dency towards  the  mystical,  the  vague,  and  the  fantastic. 

The  early  mingling  of  Slavic,  Norse,  and  Finnish  elements, 
centuries  of  Byzantine  influence  with  its  sapping  of  secular  life 
to  foster  monastic  ideals,  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  Mon- 
golian domination  and  intermarriage,  followed  by  a  faint  taste 
of  Italian  Renaissance  in  the  artistic  labors  of  the  Fioraventis, 
thereupon  a  forcible  inoculation  of  Western  manners  and 
civilization  by  Peter  I,  finally  to  be  succeeded  by  unbroken 
intercourse  with  Western  Europe, —  this  process  has  brought 
it  about  that  to-day  Russia  is,  for  the  tourist,  culturally  (as 
she  is  geographically)  the  middle  ground  between  Western 
Europe  and  Asia,  and  justifies  to  a  certain  degree  Havelock 


318  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

Ellis's  characterization  of  Russia  as  the  barbarian  country  in 
Europe,  just  as  lately  he  has  labeled  Spain  the  surviving 
savage  country  in  Europe. 

The  commingling  of  such  contrasting  elements  has  made 
"the  Russian  in  reality  a  well-tempered  alloy  of  the  two  great 
racial  stocks,  the  European  longheads  and  Asiatic  broadheads," 
and  has  given  him  the  pecuUar  traits  that  have  stood  him  in 
good  stead  in  gaining  his  position  among  the  nations. 

The  Russian's  emotional  expansiveness,  the  recklessness 
with  which  he  expresses  his  feelings,  as  shown  in  the  habit 
of  kissing  and  embracing  among  men  (on  meeting  after  a  long 
separation),  in  his  tropical  enthusiasm  and  tears  at  the 
theater,  in  the  whole-heartedness  with  which  he  goes  in  for 
the  work  he  chooses  —  that  is  what  most  strikes  a  foreigner. 

And  with  this  are  combined  a  simplicity  and  frankness  that 
seem  brutal  to  a  staid  Anglo-Saxon  or  a  courtly  Latin.  The 
''broad  Russian  nature,"  a  "soul  wide-open"  (like  a  door 
ajar),  are  the  current  phrases  among  the  Russians  themselves. 
To  confer  the  highest  encomium  upon  a  man  in  his  private  or 
public  relations  is  to  say  that  he  is  "a  man  with  a  soul,"  a 
"soulful  man,"  a  "soul  of  a  man." 

Such  simple-heartedness  and  sincerity  make  a  Russian 
fearfully  zealous  in  his  ideals.  He  accepts  ideas  no  matter 
by  whom  propounded,  and  immediately  makes  them  a  part 
of  himself.     As  Brandes  says :  — 

"The  cultivated  Russian  understands  and  always  has  under- 
stood the  living,  the  new,  the  newest  in  foreign  countries,  and  does 
not  wait  till  it  becomes  cheap  because  it  is  old  or  has  gained  currency 
by  the  approbation  of  the  stranger's  countrymen.  The  Russian 
catches  the  new  thought  on  the  wing.  Their  culture  makes  a 
modern  race,  with  the  keenest  scent  for  everything  modern." 

Having  once  made  an  idea  or  ideal  his  own,  a  Russian  will 
unfalteringly  carry  it  to  its  bitter  end.  He  will  not  yield  even 
in  the  face  of  its  reductio  ad  absurdum. 


RUSSIAN  LITERATURE  319 

It  is  this  devotion  to  ideals  that  has  caused  tens  of  thousands 
of  the  flower  of  Russian  youth  to  leave  their  kindred  and  homes 
and  "go  to  the  people,"  hve  and  work  among  and  for  the 
peasants,  share  their  simple  fare,  their  joys  and  their  sorrows, 
and  give  their  lives  in  the  prisons,  in  Siberia  and  on  the  gallows, 
with  a  stoicism  and  martyr's  exaltation,  that  have  aroused  the 
wonder  of  the  civilized  world.  But  it  is  also  this  same  de- 
votion to  ideals  that  makes  the  tender-hearted  Russian  un- 
hesitatingly shoot  down  men  by  the  hundreds,  when  these 
men  happen  to  be  among  those  who  misrule  Russia.  To 
the  unthinking  it  may  seem  a  cruelty  incompatible  with  that 
almost  feminine  tenderness.  But  who  would  deny  the  tender 
love  of  Brutus  for  Csesar  and  the  logic  of  his  arguments  for 
kilhng  Caesar  ? 

Altruism  and  a  burning  zeal  combine  into  a  well-defined 
sense  of  responsibihty  which  becomes  almost  oppressive. 
It  makes  the  Russian  youth  mature  early  and  age  too  soon. 

On  the  one  hand  an  ardent  love  for  one's  fellow-beings,  on  the 
other  the  iron  hand  of  an  autocratic  government;  the  out- 
bursts of  hopeful  youth  countered  by  the  fury  of  merciless 
repression,  —  there  is  the  environment  which  explains  the 
apparently  causeless  oscillation  between  hopefulness  and 
pessimism,  unbridled  merriment  and  fathomless  grief,  which 
lies  in  the  make-up  of  every  Russian.  That  master  of  Russian 
character,  Pushkin,  sang  more  than  seventy  years  ago:  — 

"  Something  kindred,  dear  is  sounded. 
In  my  coachman's  songs  unending : 
Now  'tis  merriment  unbounded, 
Then  again  'tis  grief  heart-rending," 


and  elsewhere : 


"  How  sadly  sings  the  Russian  Maiden, 
Like  our  Muse,  a  songstress  sorrow-laden. 
.  .  .    All  our  race, 
From  coachman  to  the  foremost  poet, 


320  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

We  all  sing  dolefully.     A  dismal  whine 
A  Russian's  song  is,  ever  know  it ; 

Begins :  "Your  health  !"  a  funeral  dirge  in  fine. 
Though  Muse  and  Maid  sing  mournfully, 
I  like  their  plaintive  melody." 

Clearly,  as  has  been  said,  "the  Russians  are  radicals  in 
ever}i,hing,  in  faith  and  infidelity,  in  love  and  hate,  in  sub- 
mission and  rebellion." 

In  analyzing  "  De  Rerum  Natura  "  Professor  Mackail  states 
that  with  Lucretius  "the  joy  and  glory  of  his  art  come  second 
to  his  passionate  love  of  truth,  and  the  deep  moral  purport 
of  what  he  believes  to  be  the  one  true  message  for  mankind. 
.  .  .  His  mission  ...  is  that  light  of  truth  which  is  "clearer 
than  the  beams  of  the  sun  or  the  shining  shafts  of  day." 

"A  Roman  aristocrat,  living  among  a  highly  cultivated  society, 
Lucretius  had  been  yet  endowed  by  nature  with  the  primitive  in- 
stincts of  the  savage.  He  sees  the  ordinary  processes  of  everyday 
life  —  weaving,  carpentry,  metal-working,  even  such  specialized 
forms  of  manual  art  as  the  polishing  of  the  surface  of  marble — with 
the  fresh  eye  of  one  who  sees  them  all  for  the  first  time.  Nothing 
is  to  him  indistinct  through  familiarity.  In  virtue  of  this  absolute 
clearness  of  vision  it  costs  him  no  effort  to  throw  himself  back  into 
prehistoric  conditions  and  the  wild  life  of  the  earliest  men." 

Almost  two  thousand  years  after  Lucretius,  history  has 
repeated  itself  in  the  case  of  the  Russian  writers.  They  have 
brought  to  their  task  the  same  passionate  love  of  truth  and 
the  savage's  clearness  of  vision  in  approaching  the  phenomena 
of  human  life  they  chose  to  deal  with;  qualities  just  as  pre- 
cious in  their  way  as  the  ancient  Greek's  Forschungsgeist  — 
the  cra\ang  for  investigation  (if  this  free  rendering  may  be 
pardoned),  and  his  unfailing  sense  of  artistic  proportion. 

This  is  what  made  Russian  authors  realists  Kar  Uoxnv, 
what  gave  Russia  a  naturalist  school  in  Literature  decades 
before  anybody  in  Western  Europe  had  ever  thought  of  realism 
or  naturalism.     "Whether  it  was  due  to  his  superior  quali- 


RUSSIAN  LITERATURE  321 

fication  for  the  special  end  in  view,  or  precisely  because  his 
mind  was  untutored  and  unsophisticated  and  therefore  un- 
spoiled, makes  no  difference  for  the  point  in  hand.  The  fact 
remains  that  a  Russian  writer  could  no  more  help  seeing  life 
and  action  exactly  as  they  were,  and  then  depicting  them  as 
he  saw  them,  than  a  Greek  could  help  expressing  himself  in 
art  with  a  wonderful  sense  of  proportion. 

Add  to  these  traits  the  Russian's  innate  emotionality  and 
you  have  the  basis  of  the  all-pervading  humanity  of  Russian 
Literature  as  a  whole,  its  teaching  mission,  or  "pity"  as  it 
has  often  been  called,  which  must  not  be  confounded  with 
didacticism.  A  comparison  of  the  works  of  the  modern 
Russian  writers  with  the  realistic  productions  of  their  French 
rivals  will  make  the  matter  quite  clear.  The  Frenchmen, 
in  developing  their  negative  characters,  and  following  up  the 
succession  of  their  psychological  states  with  the  minutest 
details,  give  one  the  impression  of  delivering  a  prosecuting- 
attorney's  speech  in  court;  they  have  no  sympathy  with  their 
characters  of  non-heroic  stamp,  they  bring  up  all  those  wonder- 
fully wrought  out  protocol  minutiae  only  the  more  effectively 
to  draw  a  crushing  verdict  from  their  readers. 

To  the  Russian  authors,  on  the  other  hand,  the  famous  Une 
of  Terence  — 

Homo  sum  :  humani  nihil  a  me  alienum  puto  — 

"  I  am  a  man :  I  deem  nothing  human  foreign  to  me  "  — 

is  the  principle  par  excellence ;  it  is  their  chief  and  moving  spirit. 
People  with  weak  -v^ills,  with  high-strung  nerves,  affected  by 
the  many  other  maladies  of  the  day,  are  not  looked  down  upon, 
but  evoke  the  heart-felt  pity  of  the  author,  who  sees  in  them 
but  incomplete  portions  of  human  beings  as  designed  by  their 
Creator,  members  of  society  crippled  by  the  vagaries  of  the 
private,  social,  and  political  life  of  our  times.  It  is  this 
quality  that  made  Gogol  consider  that  the  greatest  merit  of 
his  work  consisted  in  the  fact  that  "he  surveyed  all  this  hugely 


322  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

rushing  life,  through  laughter  seen  by  the  world  and  tears 
invisible  and  unknown  to  it.'"  It  is  this  quality  again  that 
moved  a  foreign  critic  to  say  that  Tolstoy  "possesses  the  skill 
of  an  English  chemist  with  the  soul  of  a  Hindu  Buddhist." 

To  what  extraordinary  lengths  this  gift  of  sjTnpathy  with 
the  characters  depicted,  of  placing  themselves  so  to  speak  in 
their  heroes'  skin,  can  go  with  the  Russian  writers,  may  be 
gathered  from  the  following  anecdote,  sufficiently  attested  to 
be  quoted  here. 

"One  dreary  winter  day  Tolstoy  and  Turgenieff,  in  their  aimless 
rambles,  came  upon  a  broken-down  old  horse  waiting  for  its  driver, 
in  the  piercing  cold.  Tolstoy  walked  over  to  the  horse  and  ten- 
derly patting  the  shivering  animal,  depicted  its  pedigree,  past  his- 
tory, and  its  feelings  at  the  moment,  in  a  few  masterly  strokes,  with 
such  power,  boundless  love  and  compassion,  that  Turgenieff  half- 
joldngly  burst  out :  '  Lyoff  Nikolayevich  !  you  surely  must  have 
had  several  generations  of  horses  among  your  ancestors,  for  other- 
wise you  could  not  feel  so  deeply  for  this  horse.' " 

This  was  the  secret  mainspring  that  enabled  Tolstoy  (in 
common  with  the  other  great  Russian  writers)  to  depict  with 
equal  facility,  sureness  of  touch  and  unerring  power,  all  kinds 
of  characters:  children,  adults,  and  old  folk;  men  and  women 
in  all  walks  of  life,  from  rulers  of  nations,  through  ministers, 
statesmen,  courtiers,  great  noblemen  and  clergymen,  down 
to  the  smallest  prison  official  who  can  be  bought  with  a  pound 
of  sugar;  the  martyrs  of  the  Russian  revolution  and  its  dun- 
geon-keepers, executioners,  and  hardened  jailbirds;  the  most 
ideal  representatives  of  Russian  womanhood  and  the  women 
of  the  gutter. 

But  this  altruism  in  dealing  with  others  makes  them  just 
as  cruel  in  dealing  with  themselves  (in  their  remorseless  self- 
analysis  and  self-criticism)  as  they  are  tender  in  dealing  with 
others,  for  in  depicting  in  both  cases  with  equal  fideUty  to 
actual  life,  they  are   drawn  by  their  extreme  idealism  to 


RUSSIAN   LITERATURE  323 

explain  away  the  faults  of  others  while  scourging  themselves 
for  the  same. 

A  gang  of  convicts,  with  many  a  murderer  and  hardened 
criminal  among  them,  on  the  foot-wearying  tramp  to  Siberia 
evoke  nothing  but  the  most  effusive  outbursts  of  sympathy 
(often  taking  the  material  shape  of  donations  in  money, 
clothes,  and  provisions)  on  the  part  of  the  villagers  by  the  road. 
Yet  those  same  peasants,  after  conmiitting  a  crime,  will  in 
most  cases,  under  the  stress  of  awakened  conscience,  rush  to 
the  market-place  to  make  a  clean  breast  of  it  before  the  whole 
community,  pleading  with  the  fellow- villagers  to  shower  abuse 
and  blows  on  them  as  sinners  unworthy  of  their  God's  image. 

But  no  matter  how  strongly  marked  these  humane  ten- 
dencies might  be,  they  would  probably  remain  isolated  cases, 
if  there  had  been  no  conscious  striving  after  definite  ideals, 
had  they  not  been  enthroned  as  principles  that  should  be  the 
beacon  fights  of  the  advanced  writers  among  the  Russians. 

True,  Dyerzhavin's  (1743-1816)  whole  claim  to  immortality 
was  based  on  being  the  bard  of  Catherine  IPs  achieve- 
ments:— 

"I  shall  extol,  I  shall  proclaim  thee, 
Through  thee  immortal  be  myself," 

but  he  also  takes  credit  for 

"With  a  smile  telling  the  truth  to  Tsars." 
As  for  Pushkin,  who  as  a  lad  wrote  — 

"The  old  Dyerzhavin  us  has  noticed, 
And  on  the  brink  of  grave  has  blessed," 

he  has  entirely  different  claims.  He,  whom  partisans  of 
"Art  for  Art's  sake,"  "pure  Art,"  etc.,  proclaimed  their  ideal 
and  idol,  —  he  will  have  his  imperishable  monument  for  this 
reason:  — 

"And  of  my  people  I  long  for  this  shall  be  beloved 
That  kindly  feelings  with  my  lyre  I  used  to  wake ; 
That  by  the  vivid  charm  of  verses  I  was  useful 
And  mercv  to  the  fallen  I  invoked." 


324  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

It  is  on  the  invoking  of  "mercy  to  the  fallen,"  the  "waking 
of  kindly  feelings,"  the  actual  "usefulness"  of  his  poetry,  that 
Pushkin  bases  his  claims  to  immortaUty. 

In  another  poem,  "The  Echo,"  he  distinctly  lays  it  down 
as  the  poet's  duty  to  vibrate  in  consonance  with  the  multi- 
tudinous events  of  life,  even  though  himself  receiving  no 
response  from  any  one:  — 

THE  ECHO 

"There  roars  a  beast  in  forest's  gloom, 
Or  horn  blares,  or  thunders  boom, 
Or  maiden  sings  beyond  the  holm  ;  — 
<  To  every  tone 

Thy  answer  in  air's  vacant  dome. 
Thou  dost  intone. 

"Thou  hearkenst  to  the  thunders  gruff, 
The  voice  of  storm  and  waves  far-off, 
And  shout  of  rustic  shepherds  rough ;  — 

Comes  answer  back. 
But  thou  gett'st  none.     As  badly  off 

A  bard's,  alack !" 

And  this  is  the  keynote  of  Russian  Literature  and  literary 
criticism.  Every  Russian  author  of  note  has  distinctly  stated 
that  his  literary  work  is  but  a  means  for  a  certain  well-defined 
purpose,  a  straight  aiming  at  a  sturdy  reality,  not  a  blind 
groping  after  vague  and  diffuse  ideals. 

The  faltering  verse  of  Russia's  first  would-be  poet,  Kantemir 
(1708-1744),  becomes  a  social  satire  against  the  senseless 
opposition  to  the  reforms  of  Peter  the  Great.  The  odes  of 
Lomonosoff  (1711-1765)  attain  a  genuine  poetic  ring  when 
dealing  with  the  value  of  knowledge  for  benighted  Russia. 
The  comedies  of  Fonvizin  (1745-1792),  the  first  artistic  crea- 
tions (along  with  their  lesser  contemporary  achievements  by 
Catherine  II)  on  truly  Russian  lines,  scourge  the  excesses  of 


RUSSIAN   LITERATURE  325 

worshiping  foreign  manners  and  customs,  and  plead  for  the 
national  simphcity  of  olden  days. 

Griboyedoff  (1795-1829),  in  his  "Misfortune  from  Intelli- 
gence," that  heart-rending  cry  of  a  man  that  loved  his  coun- 
try only  too  well,  had  for  his  direct  object  to  combat  the  bane- 
ful influence  of  the  fad  for  aping  everj-thing  French. 

Lermontoff  (1814-1841)  forges  his  deadliest  darts,  pours 
out  the  fiercest  venom  of  his  "iron  verse,  suffused  with  bitter- 
ness and  anger,"  against  the  triviality  and  shallowness  of 
the  society  of  his  time.  The  Eternal  Judge  has  given  him 
the  omniscience  of  a  prophet :  — 

"Of  love  and  truth  I  then  commenced 
To  herald  undefiled  teachings ; 
Then  all  my  fellow-men  incensed. 

At  me  stones  hurled  for  my  preachings." 

At  eighteen,  Gogol  (1809-1852)  writes  in  his  letters:  "I 
have  consecrated  my  whole  hfe  to  doing  good,"  "  all  my  powers 
to  nothing  but  the  advantage  of  the  fatherland,"  "almost 
since  the  age  of  mental  immaturity  I  burned  with  the  un- 
quenchable zeal  of  making  my  life  indispensable  for  the  wel- 
fare of  the  State;  I  eagerly  sought  to  contribute  the  slightest 
benefit  whatever." 

Turgenieff  (1818-1883),  "the  Westerner,"  whom  Tame 
considered  "  one  of  the  most  perfect  artists  the  world  has 
produced  since  the  classic  period,"  on  the  very  threshold  of 
his  literary  career  takes  his  Hannibalian  oath  never  to  make 
peace  with  his  "enemy,"  to  fight  to  a  finish  that  enemy  — 
the  institution  of  serfdom  —  and  actually  leaves  Russia  the 
more  effectively  to  strike  his  blows.  His  "Annals  of  a  Sports- 
man" (1847-1851),  an  infinitely  superior  artistic  achievement 
to  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin, "  produced  the  effect  aimed  at  by  the 
author.  Alexander  II,  who  avowed  the  strong  impression 
Turgenieff's  sketches  had  made  on  him,  emancipated  the  serfs 
in  1861. 


326  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

Tolstoy  (1828-1910),  in  the  early  fifties,  when  an  author 
was  safe  from  the  rigors  of  reprisals  only  in  the  realm  of  "pm-e 
Art,"  proclaims  in  a  personal  outpouring,  "I  shall  write, 
but  not  as  you  do,  for  I  know  wherefore  I  shall  write." 

His  "'Sebastopol"  sketches  conclude  as  follows:  "Where 
is  the  embodiment  of  evil  which  is  to  be  avoided?  Where, 
in  this  story,  is  the  embodiment  of  good  which  is  to  be  imi- 
tated? Who  is  its  villain  and  who  the  hero?  All  are  good 
and  all  are  bad.  But  the  hero  of  my  story  whom  I  love  with 
all  the  powers  of  my  soul,  whom  I  have  striven  to  reproduce 
in  all  his  beauty  and  who  always  has  been,  is,  and  will  be 
beautiful,  is  truth." 

Or  elsewhere,  in  the  preface  which  Tolstoy  wrote  for  the 
Russian  translation  of  Amiel's  "Journal":  "For  we  love  and 
need  an  author  only  in  proportion  as  he  reveals  to  us  the 
inner  process  of  his  soul,  of  course  if  this  process  is  new  and 
has  not  been  gone  through  before.  Whatever  he  may  write 
—  a  play,  scientific  work,  novel,  philosophical  treatise, 
lyric  poem,  critique,  satire  —  what  is  dear  to  us  in  the  writer's 
work  is  but  this  inner  working  of  his  soul  and  not  the  archi- 
tectural edifice,  into  which  most  of  the  time  (and  I  even  think, 
always)  he  lays  his  maimed  thought  and  feeling." 

As  for  the  folk-novel  movement  of  the  period  of  "going 
to  the  people,"  suffice  it  to  quote  a  letter  of  Ryeshetnikoff 
(1841-1871)  to  Nyekrasoff :  "I  conceived  the  idea  of  describ- 
ing the  life  of  the  burlaks  (bargemen  on  the  Volga)  in  order  that 
I  might,  even  in  the  slightest  degree,  help  these  poor  toilers." 

It  may  be  pointed  out  here  that  this  view  had  permeated 
all  branches  of  Russian  art  at  the  time.  Thus  the  composer 
Dargomyzhski  wTote  iii  1857:  "I  have  no  intention  to  degrade 
music  to  the  level  of  a  pastime.  I  want  the  sound  to  express 
the  word  directly.  I  want  truth."  He  strove  for  the  im- 
pression of  truth  and  realistic  representation,  while  Musorgski, 
the  follower  of  this  "great  teacher  of  musical  truth,"  laid  this 
down  as  the  articles  of  his  own  reahstic  faith:  "artistic  rep- 


RUSSIAN   LITERATURE  327 

resentation  of  material  beauty  is  childishness,  the  infantile 
age  of  Art";  "Art  is  a  medium  of  communion  with  mankind, 
not  its  aim." 

Thus  whether  in  the  jeremiads  of  Radishcheff  against  serf- 
dom or  in  Fonvizin's  and  Griboyedoff's  satires  on  the  stupid 
mania  for  imitating  foreign  manners,  or  Gogol's  scourging  of 
oflBcial  corruption  from  lowest  to  highest,  or  Turgenieff's 
pleading  for  the  serfs,  or  the  whole  folk-novel  movement  in 
behalf  of  the  starving  emancipated  peasants,  or  Tolstoy's  glori- 
fication of  the  common  people  (and  in  his  actual  teachings), 
or  Dostoyefski's  plea  for  the  humble,  the  downtrodden,  and 
the  criminals,  or  Gorki's  appeals  for  the  outcast  and  the  tramp, 
Russian  Literature  has  been  faithful  to  its  mission:  to  direct 
the  minds  of  its  readers  for  the  betterment  of  Russian  society 
as  a  whole  by  bettering  the  lot  of  those  who  most  urgently 
need  it,  to  tell  the  unvarnished  truth  in  describing  Russian 
life. 

Owing  to  the  extraordinary  conditions  of  Russian  political 
and  social  life,  with  its  argus-eyed  censors  and  dreadful  system 
of  espionage,  Literature  has  by  force  of  circumstances  become 
the  only  means,  the  exclusive  arena  for  struggle  against  the 
evils  of  Russian  political,  economic,  and  social  Ufe.  Even  the 
establishment  of  a  free  school  is  strongly  objected  to  by  the 
government  and  imphes  untold  difficulties.  Tolstoy's  peda- 
gogic labors  in  Yasnaya  Polyana  had  been  made  the  subject 
of  an  especial  investigation  with  a  view  to  finding  traces  of 
revolutionary  activity.  Through  certain  circumstances,  how- 
ever, Tolstoy  went  unmolested  and  was  even  commended 
where  thousands  of  others  were  visited  with  exile  or  imprison- 
ment. 

In  this  its  special  mission.  Literature  in  the  narrower  sense  of 
belles-lettres  was  powerfully  supported  by  all  the  advanced  Rus- 
sian literary  critics  who  took  their  cue  from  the  great  authors 
of  Russia.  Thus  the  interdependence  between  Literature 
and  life,  and  the  function  of  Literature  as  a  disseminator  of 


328  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

the  tenets  of  the  advanced  minds  in  Russia,  soon  became  the 
Russian  hterary  critics'  profession  of  faith.  A  hterary  pro- 
duction was  judged  not  from  a  purely  literary  point  of  view, 
but  according  as  it  furthered  or  retarded  social  progress,  as 
it  served  to  help  the  attainment  of  the  social  and  ethical  ideals 
of  society.  A  work  would  be  condemned  unhesitatingly  if  it 
lost  connection  with  Hfe  by  tearing  itself  away  into  the  regions 
of  Art  for  Art's  sake. 

Here  one  might  say  that  the  Russian's  well-known  ideal- 
ism apparently  runs  counter  to  his  uncompromising  realism 
in  Literature.  But  this  contradiction  is  only  surface  deep; 
the  Russian  sees  everything  with  the  eyes  of  a  thoroughgoing 
realist,  but  back  of  it  all  is  a  higher  purpose,  the  reahsm 
becomes  handmaid  of  a  high  ideal:  to  advance  social  prog- 
ress, to  better  the  lot  of  the  unfortunate. 

Naturally,  in  the  clash  and  turmoil  of  several  generations 
of  opposing  views,  many  a  writer  or  critic  has  gone  to  the 
absurd  limits  of  his  pet  theories,  the  more  so  when  we  bear 
in  mind  that  the  Russian  nature  tends  to  run  to  extremes. 

Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  Pisareff  (1840-1868),  a  critic  who 
swayed  the  minds  of  Russian  youth  during  the  Sixties,  pro- 
claimed the  ancillary  office  of  Literature  by  pushing  his  utiU- 
tarian  theories  to  the  point  of  declaring  that  all  the  works 
of  a  second-rate  poet  are  not  worth  a  pair  of  boots,  the  labor 
of  a  plodding  cobbler.  And  years  before  Ibsen  had  disowned 
verse  for  the  purposes  of  drama,  the  great  satirist  Shchedrin, 
himself  guilty  of  riding  Pegasus  in  his  younger  days,  declared, 
in  a  moment  of  exasperation,  that  those  who  wrote  verse 
seemed  to  him  lunatics  trying  to  walk  along  a  string  stretched 
on  the  floor,  and  half  sitting  down  at  each  step. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  whole  group  of  poets,  under  the  reac- 
tionary pressure  of  Nicholas  I's  reign  preached  "Art  for  Art's 
sake,"  and  their  most  characteristic  representative,  Fet,  who 
hymned  abstract  beauty  untiringly  for  over  half  a  century, 
was  the  most  hard-handed  among  the  many  Russian  hard- 


RUSSIAN   LITERATURE  329 

handed  masters  in  dealing  with  his  peasants  and  in  his  fre- 
quent polemic  writings  on  this  subject.  The  mere  fact  that 
they  preached  pure  Art,  that  they  kept  aloof  from  life's  stern 
realities,  made  such  preachers  advocates  of  the  existing  order 
in  the  eyes  of  all  those  who  felt  the  weight  of  governmental 
oppression.  Thus  the  view,  that  the  realistic  school  of 
writers  stood  for  progress  and  light  and  the  partisans  of  "pure 
Art"  were  allies  of  the  forces  of  darkness  and  reaction,  was 
only  strengthened. 

While  these  two  currents  of  literary  thought  and  ideals 
have  to  a  certain  degree  existed  side  by  side,  they  really 
carried  on  a  ceaseless  struggle  for  supremacy.  But  with  each 
successive  swing  of  the  pendulum  the  ethical  school,  with  its 
altruistic  teachings  of  love  for  the  "lesser  brother,"  invari- 
ably gathered  more  and  more  force  at  the  expense  of  the 
school  of  pure  art.  The  victories  of  the  former  ever  represent 
the  culminating  points  in  the  history  of  Russian  letters;  the 
latter  as  unfailingly  mark  the  gloomiest  periods  in  the  reigns 
of  a  succession  of  gloomy  autocrats.  There  is  a  throbbing 
joy  of  life,  a  hopefulness  and  vigor  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  Russian  Literature,  when  the  ethical  cause  is 
predominant;  there  is  marked  melancholy,  pessimism  almost 
bordering  on  despair,  when  "pure  Art"  sends  forth  its  full 
bloom. 

But  with  all  this  Russian  Literature  has  mirrored  every 
shade  of  the  literary  movements  of  Western  Europe.  For 
have  we  not  seen  that  the  Russian  possesses  to  an  extraor- 
dinary degree,  the  capacity  for  grasping  new  ideas  imme- 
diately upon  coming  into  contact  with  them,  and  also  the 
power  of  adapting  and  adopting,  appropriating  them  at 
once? 

And  thus  it  is  that  the  Russians  were  pseudo-classicists  in 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  were  Encyclopedists 
(as,  for  example,  in  Catherine  II)  with  Voltaire  and  Diderot, 
wept  tears  of  sentimentalism  with  Karamzin   (1766-1826) 


330  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

over  the  novels  of  Richardson  and  Sterne,  grew  violent  ro- 
manticists when  Byron  was  the  undisputed  overlord  over  the 
minds  of  Pushldn  and  the  youthful  Lermontoff,  became  plus 
royalistes  que  le  roi  over  Hegelian  dialectics,  with  the 
famous  "all  that  which  exists  is  reasonable,"  in  the  Thirties 
and  early  Forties,  then  Darwinists  and  positi\4sts  and  Spen- 
cerians  and  Schopenhauerians  and  sjonbolists  and  Nietz- 
scheans  and  even,  at  last,  decadents  with  a  faint  touch  of 
pornography  to  boot,  all  in  turn  (at  times  somewhat  behind- 
hand) as  these  movements  succeeded  one  another  in  the 
thought  of  Western  Europe.  But  all  these  numerous  in- 
tellectual shades  of  opinion  were  almost  inamediately  re- 
created and  incorporated  into  the  peculiarly  national  psy- 
chology of  the  Russian,  with  its  sober  realism  of  manner  and 
high  idealism  of  thought.  The  history  of  Russian  Literature 
is  thus  at  the  same  time  the  history  of  Russian  thought. 

Thus  the  saying  current  in  Russia,  that  "the  Frenchman 
will  hit  upon  an  invention,  the  Enghshman  will  manufacture 
it,  the  German  will  import  it  into  Russia  for  sale,  and  the 
Russian  will  come  and  steal  it,"  has  been  shown  to  be  true 
in  other  fields  than  industry.  But  the  process  has  been  much 
more  than  mere  appropriation.  It  has  been  a  laborious  and 
painstaking  process  of  transmutation  and  fusion.  It  has 
been  a  gathering  of  threads  of  somber  color  and  bright  color, 
garish  and  subdued,  and  weaving  them  into  one  majestic 
tapestry  of  a  wonderful  design  and  charming  the  sense  of 
vision  with  the  beauty  of  its  composition  and  the  harmo- 
nious blending  of  all  the  tints  and  shades  of  the  rainbow. 

It  has  been  a  fructifying  process  par  ecxellence,  not  of  cram- 
ming only  or  even  of  assimilation,  whereby  Russia  has  re- 
turned a  hundred  fold  for  what  it  has  borrowed. 

Some  of  the  most  prominent  writers  of  France,  England, 
Germany,  Italy,  Spain,  and  America,  of  the  last  quarter  of  a 
century,  have  been  more  or  less  the  product  of  the  school  of 
writing  as  exemphfied  in  the  works  of  Turgenieff,  Dostoyefski, 


RUSSIAN   LITERATURE  331 

and  Tolstoy,  and  Bourget,  Maupassant,  James,  Howells, 
Hauptmann,  and  D'Aimunzio,  to  name  but  a  few  of  a  host, 
have  clearly  shown  or  expressly  acknowledged  their  in- 
debtedness to  the  Russian  literary  masters. 

It  is  idle  and  perniciously  misleading  therefore  to  assert 
that  Russian  Literature  has  nothing  original  in  it  (as  has  been 
done  in  a  curiously  biased  "History  of  Russian  Literature," 
by  K.  Waliszewski,  1900),  for  ''does  it  detract  a  whit  from 
the  quality  of  the  magnificent  ruby,  when  we  are  told  that 
the  element  of  which  it  is  formed  is  a  colored  variety  of 
corundum  or  alumina,"  actually  the  most  abundant  of  the 
earths  ? 

As  for  the  future  of  Russian  Literature,  it  of  course  is  in 
the  lap  of  the  gods  along  with  the  future  of  Russia. 

In  order  to  avoid  the  perils  of  prophecy  and  to  let  a  non- 
Russian,  who  is  more  competent  in  that  sphere,  pronounce 
upon  the  question  of  Russia's  future,  I  shall  conclude  with 
these  words  of  Havelock  Ellis :  — 

"Russia  at  the  present  time  is  a  vast  laboratory  for  the  experi- 
mental manufacture  of  the  greatest  European  and  Asiatic  nation, 
fated  to  mold,  as  much  probably  as  any  nation,  the  future  of 
the  world.  Such  a  process  is  always  going  on  everywhere  at 
some  stage  of  acuteness,  but  in  the  rest  of  Europe  the  formative 
stage  in  the  growth  of  peoples  has  long  gone  by,  and  while  it  lasted 
there  were  few  or  none  able  and  competent  to  observe  it.  Irr  Russia 
we  see  the  process  in  its  most  acute  form.  This  enormous  birth- 
rate, this  death-rate  so  enormous  as  sometimes  to  equal  the  births, 
this  creation  of  human  beings  on  so  vast  a  scale  and  the  testing  and 
proving  of  them  in  the  most  trying  of  climates  —  in  this  great 
experimental  operation  Nature  is,  on  the  whole,  still  left  to  attain 
her  own  results  in  her  own  way.  In  such  an  acute  and  destructive 
process  of  natural  selection,  not  only  are  the  weakest  lost,  but  a 
certain  number  of  human  failures  are  necessarily  left.  Thus  there 
are  neurotic  and  degenerate  elements  in  all  classes  of  society,  though, 
as  the  comparative  harmlessness  of  Russian  criminality  and  the 


332  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

absence  of  the  physical  signs  of  degeneracy  clearly  indicate,  the 
process  of  selection  on  the  whole  works  truly.  The  Russian  pessi- 
mist and  the  hostile  foreigner  see  nothing  but  decadence.  The 
thoughtful  observer  knows  that  such  decadence  is  but  the  inevitable 
by-product  in  the  formative  process  of  a  great  nation." 

"Beyond  any  other  European  people  the  Russians  possess  a 
degree  of  receptivity,  a  radical  humanity  of  feeling,  a  fund  of  high 
idealism,  and  a  sense  of  the  relationship  of  ideals  to  practical  life, 
which  cannot  fail  to  carry  them  very  far.  These  things,  far  more 
than  either  an  outrageous  militarism  or  the  capacity  for  frantic  in- 
dustrial production,  in  the  end  make  up  civilization." 


XVII 

THE  COSMOPOLITAN  OUTLOOK 
By  W.  p.  Trent,  Professor  of  English  Literature 

The  title  of  this  lecture  is  "The  Cosmopolitan  Outlook," 
undoubtedly  a  very  high-sounding  phrase,  but,  like  most 
such  phrases,  exceedingly  vague.  I  suppose  it  gives  me  a 
license  to  talk  briefly  about  the  general  status  of  Literature, 
present  and  future,  and  to  endeavor  to  discover  what  part 
Cosmopolitanism  plays  and  may  be  expected  to  play  in  de- 
termining that  status.  Such  a  license  plainly  carries  with  it 
one  advantage.  It  is  not  safe  to  contradict  a  man,  however 
much  one  may  dislike  his  utterances,  when  it  is  obvious  that 
he  is  discussing  a  subject  about  which  neither  he  nor  any 
one  else  knows  anything  definite.  On  the  other  hand,  I  have 
a  shrewd  conviction  that  this  apparent  immunity  from  suc- 
cessful contradiction  differs  Uttle  from  an  opportunity  to 
display  my  rashness  as  a  generalizer,  and  that  I  am  about  to 
essay  what  has  come  to  be  in  America  a  presidential  rather 
than  a  professorial  function.  It  is  our  presidents  who  fill 
our  sails  of  thought  with  the  winds  of  generahzation.  When 
Ulysses  carried  the  bags  of  -^olus,  it  was  his  crew  that  let 
loose,  while  he  slept,  the  angry  and  adverse  blasts.  But  in 
our  superior  modern  wisdom  we  have  changed  all  that.  It 
is  our  leaders  themselves  that  let  loose  our  gusty  winds.  It 
is  our  presidents,  actual  and  potential,  who  tell  us  things 
about  finance  that  are  in  very  truth  beyond  the  dreams  of 
avarice,  and  the  wits  of  political  economists.  It  is  our 
presidents  who,   in  their  philanthropical  zeal,  are  ready  to 

333 


334  THE  COSMOPOLITAN   OUTLOOK 

regulate  the  size  of  our  families  and  the  length  of  our  book- 
shelves. Into  their  perilous  barks  shall  a  mere  professor  at- 
tempt to  climb  ?  Ah,  yes !  for  the  public  is  platform-mad 
just  as  it  is  airship-mad.  It  is  the  duty  of  all  of  us,  that 
have  even  the  feeblest  gift  of  tongue,  to  sacrifice  ourselves 
to  thee,  O  sovereign  Demos,  lest,  to  paraphrase  Homer,  we 
all  perish  in  thy  anger  at  being  deprived  of  wind :  — 

<I>S  fir]  TravTCS  oXwvrat  oSvaaafxevoLO  reolo 

The  Cosmopolitan  Outlook!  That  seems  to  imply  that, 
even  if  we  are  not  all  cosmopolitans  now,  we  have  a  chance  of 
becoming  cosmopolitans  one  of  these  days,  and  that  Litera- 
ture will  be  affected  by  the  change.  Such  an  inference 
appears  to  be  reasonable,  but  it  would  scarcely  be  safe  to  use 
it  as  the  basis  of  any  sort  of  discussion  without  previously 
answering  many  questions  that  naturally  present  themselves. 

We  Americans  are  a  very  composite  people,  but,  in  so  far  as 
a  fusion  of  race  characteristics  has  taken  place  among  us, 
have  we  not  tended  to  evolve  into  a  people  strongly  marked 
by  national  characteristics  of  which  we  are  exceedingly 
proud  ?  We  are  great  travelers  —  hence  the  talk  one  often 
hears  of  the  American  invasion  of  Europe  —  and  we  are  very 
hospitable  to  strangers;  but  that  these  two  facts  involve  the 
conclusion  that  in  our  ideals  and  our  modes  of  thinking  as  a 
people  we  are  true  citizens  of  the  world  seems  to  me  very 
doubtful.  So  far  as  my  own  studies  and  travels  have  led  me 
to  think  about  the  matter,  I  have  been  left  wondering 
whether  one  does  not  find  among  the  educated  Europeans 
of  one's  acquaintance  more  of  that  liberality  and  poise  of 
thought,  and  more  of  that  humanitarian  idealism,  which  are 
or  ought  to  be  the  fruits  of  a  truly  cosmopolitan  spirit,  than 
one  finds  among  Americans.  » Facile  adaptiveness,  and  easy- 
going tolerance,  and  superficial  acquaintance  with  what  the 
world  is  saying  and  doing,  are  probably  found  in  larger 
measure  among  Americans  than  among  any  other  people, 


THE  COSMOPOLITAN   OUTLOOK  335 

but  they  are  not  signs  of  real  Cosmopolitanism  as  I  under- 
stand the  term.  1  will  go  farther  and  say  that  our  Literature 
and  our  thought,  while  on  the  whole  sound  and  adapted  to 
our  special  needs,  strike  me  as  tending  to  become  more 
national  rather  than  more  cosmopoHtan.  I  sometimes  even 
wonder  whether  we  are  not  in  a  fair  way  of  becoming  one  of 
the  most  parochical  of  peoples.  Not  long  since,  for  example, 
one  of  our  leading  newspapers  published  among  its  obituaries 
those  of  a  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
a  dock  engineer,  a  provision  outfitter,  and  a  great  historian. 
The  shortest  notice,  as  might  have  been  expected,  was  that 
of  the  scholar,  the  only  one  of  the  four  men  who  had  an  inter- 
national reputation.  The  newspaper  knew  its  business,  and 
presumably  it  knew  that  its  readers  would  not  even  care  to 
be  given  the  name  of  a  single  one  of  the  historian's  books. 
Perhaps  this  is  entirely  as  it  should  be,  and  certainly  I  am 
expressing  only  the  opinion  of  one  moderately  well-informed 
individual.  But,  as  these  must  be  my  generalizations  and 
no  one  else's,  I  may  as  well  give  them  honestly  and  fearlessly. 
We  Americans  as  a  people  have  in  ourselves  the  elements  that 
go  to  make  a  true  Cosmopolitanism,  and  we  have  them  per- 
haps to  a  greater  extent  than  any  other  people.  We  have  in 
our  broad  system  of  public  instruction,  in  our  peace  societies, 
our  scientific  associations,  our  philanthropical  and  other  fed- 
erated bodies,  instrumentalities  admirably  fitted  for  fusing 
these  elements  and  increasing  their  working  power;  but  in 
some  respects  we  seem  to  be  less  truly  cosmopolitan  than  we 
were  half  a  century  ago.  *A  profound  belief  in  the  rights  of 
man  as  man,  is,  I  think,  an  essential  element  of  true  Cosmo- 
politanism. Did  not  that  belief  help  to  keep  alive  the  cour- 
age of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
soldiers,  and  of  millions  of  men,  women,  and  children  at 
home,  during  the  dark  days  of  the  Civil  War?  Where  is 
that  profound  belief  now?  Look  into  your  hearts  and  an- 
swer, and  remember  that  this  question  is  put  to  a  Northern 


336  THE  COSMOPOLITAN  OUTLOOK 

audience  by  a  Southern-bom  man.  And  answer  another 
question,  please.  Is  a  profound  belief  in  the  rights  of  man 
as  man  likely  to  dominate  a  generation  proud  of  a  newly 
acquired  imperial  sway,  reared  on  the  precepts  of  the  gospel 
of  strenuosity,  and  naively  exhilarated  by  its  comparatively 
easily  acquired  wealth  and  power?  Would  there  be  any  reason 
to  be  surprised  if  some  one  were  to  remark  that  he  considered 
Benjamin  Franklin  and  Thomas  Jefferson  to  have  been  far 
truer  cosmopolitans  than  any  American  statesman  of  this 
modern  epoch,  which  has  seen  the  United  States  definitively 
enrolled  among  the  so-called  great  powers  of  the  world?  And 
do  not  fancy  for  a  moment  that  I  am  talking  about  politics, 
not  Literature.  SThe  spirit  that  determines  a  people's  politi- 
cal ideals  cannot  be  separated,  much  as  a  certain  tj^De  of 
critics  would  hke  to  perform  the  feat,  from  the  spirit  that 
determines  its  hterary  and  artistic  ideals.  'Mere  interna- 
tional exchange  of  books,  mere  contemporaneous  evolution, 
in  the  several  nations,  of  similar  schools  of  art  and  thought, 
mere  exploitation  throughout  the  world  of  more  or  less  iden- 
tical literary  forms  applied  to  varying  material,  may  be  signs 
of  the  approach  of  a  truly  CosmopoHtan  Literature;  but 
they  afford  no  proof  that  we  possess  such  a  Literature  now 
or  that  we  shall  soon  possess  it.  A  truly  Cosmopohtan 
Literature,  in  my  judgment,  will  come  into  existence  only  in 
that  nation  or  those  nations  wherein  a  majority,  or  a  domi- 
nant minority,  of  true  citizens  of  the  world,  that  is,  of  pro- 
fessed servants  of  humanity,  hve  and  move  and  have  their 
being. 

I  wondered  a  moment  ago  whether  one  does  not  find  among 
cultivated  Europeans  more  of  that  hberahty  and  poise  of 
thought,  and  more  of  that  humanitarian  ideaUsm  which 
ought  to  be  the  fruits  of  a  truly  cosmopolitan  spirit,  than  one 
finds  among  Americans  of  the  present  generation.  The 
comparison  here  implied  is  rendered  less  offensive  by  the 
reflection  that  the  peoples  of  Europe  have  been  welded  into  a 


THE  COSMOPOLITAN   OUTLOOK  337 

sort  of  unity  by  social  and  political  forces  generated,  for  the 
most  part,  in  the  remote  past  and  operative  through  many 
centuries,  while  the  people  of  America  have  been  welded 
into  such  unity  as  they  display  by  the  operation  of  compara- 
tively new  forces,  in  conjunction  with  many  of  the  older 
forces  operative  in  Europe.  The  pressure  that  makes  for 
equaUty,  the  pressure  which  we  may  broadly  denominate  as 
democratic,  has  worked  more  slowly  in  Europe  than  it  has 
here,  and  the  spirit  of  caste  has  been  more  powerful.  Hence, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  there  has  been  more  occasion  in  Europe 
than  in  America  for  the  soul  of  man  to  brood  upon  the  im- 
perfections of  society  and  to  find  refuge  in  liberal  and  ideal- 
istic thought.  It  is  the  old  story  that  adversity  is  a  better 
nurse  of  virtue  than  prosperity.  I  do  not  wish  to  push  the 
point  too  far,  but  it  certainly  seems  to  me  to  be  a  significant 
fact,  even  after  all  due  allowances  are  made  for  the  effects 
of  individual  genius,  to  find  what  many  persons  regard  as 
the  greatest  cosmopolitan  force  in  Literature  to-day,  pro- 
ceeding from  one  of  the  most  backward  and  oppressed  of  all 
the  great  peoples  of  the  world.  The  most  potent  voice  of  my 
generation,  if  I  know  what  the  words  I  am  using  mean,  is  that 
of  a  true  cosmopolitan  who  is  also  a  Russian,  Count  Tolstoy. 
I  know  that  he  is  sneered  at  as  a  visionary,  and  that  one 
eminent  American  is  said  to  have  pronounced  him  to  be  a 
moral  pervert.  I  know  that  he  preaches  love  instead  of  force, 
and  that  thereby  he  lays  himself  open  to  the  charge  of  being 
a  weakling.  I  know  that  his  views  with  regard  to  Art  and 
Science,  to  modern  governmental  methods  and  policies,  and 
to  that  much  lauded  virtue,  patriotism,  are,  to  say  the  least, 
not  acceptable  to  the  average  citizen  anywhere,  and  are 
anathema  to  many  well-to-do  persons  plethoric  in  pocket 
and  neck.  But  I  know  also  that  he  is  the  only  living  man  in 
private  life,  and  one  of  the  very  few  since  Voltaire,  whom 
an  organized  and  powerful  government  has  with  good  reason , 
shown  itself  to  be  afraid  to  punish   for  his  unacceptable 


338  THE  COSMOPOLITAN  OUTLOOK 

writings;  I  know  also  that  few  even  of  his  most  inveterate 
opponents  are  bold  or  foolish  enough  to  express  a  doubt  of  his 
courageous  sincerity  and  essential  nobility;  and  —  what  is  the 
main  thing  to  me  —  I  know  that  no  other  contemporary 
voice  speaks  so  directly  to  my  heart  and  to  the  hearts  of 
thousands  of  other  men  throughout  the  world.  And  I  know 
too  that  the  message  of  Tolstoy,  whatever  its  impractical 
elements,  represents  what  I  understand  as  true  Cosmopoli- 
tanism; that  is  to  say,  citizenship  in  that  ideal  republic  of 
men  and  women  of  which  the  good  and  wise  in  all  ages  have 
dreamed,  and  for  the  coming  of  which  they  have  labored. 
In  so  far  as  that  message  in  its  spirit  is  influential  to-day,  in 
so  far,  in  my  opinion,  Literature  and  life  have  a  cosmopoUtan 
outlook  of  high  significance.  I  trust  that  prosperity  and  the 
intellectual  cramping  and  flattening,  which  so  often  result 
from  what  I  have  called  the  democratic  pressure,  will  never 
seriously  impede  the  promulgation  of  that  message  in  this 
country  and  in  the  world  at  large,  and  that  in  a  broad  sense 
it  may  fairly  be  taken  as  an  index  of  the  spirit  of  that  Litera- 
ture of  the  future  in  which  our  sons  and  our  grandsons  will 
find  solace  and  inspiration. 

What  matter  if  coming  generations  accept  as  entirely 
valid  not  a  single  article  of  his  ideahstic  creed!  The  main 
consideration  should  be  for  us,  as  it  will  be,  I  think,  for  them, 
the  man's  essentially  idealistic  attitude  toward  his  fellows. 
He  is  a  great  cosmopolitan  because  he  is  a  great  altruistic 
idealist;  because,  with  ardor  undiminished  and  faith  unper- 
turbed, he  stands  there  an  aged  prophet  amid  the  Russian 
snows :  — 

"  Still  nourishing  the  unconquerable  hope, 
Still  clutching  the  inviolable  shade." 

The  hope  I  have  just  expressed  is  not  jeopardized  by  a 
curious  condition  of  affairs  to  which  we  must  now  turn  our 
thoughts.     We   are   considering   the   Cosmopolitan   Outlook 


THE  COSMOPOLITAN  OUTLOOK  339 

at  a  time  when,  as  perhaps  never  before,  the  minor  nationali- 
ties are  zealously  fostering  their  political  and  racial  aspira- 
tions through  their  Literatures.  We  are  all  familiar  with 
the  efforts  a  group  of  men  are  making  to  establish  a  modern 
Irish  Literature,  to  which  if  one  of  my  colleagues  applies  his 
favorite  epithet  British,  he  will  do  it  at  the  peril  of  his  life. 
The  evolution  of  Norwegian  Literature  has  been  one  of  the 
most  striking  facts  in  the  literary  history  of  the  past  half  cen- 
tury. With  the  winning  of  her  national  unity,  which  was 
attained  in  a  considerable  measure  through  the  patriotic 
labors  of  her  men  of  letters,  Italy  has  taken  the  place  due 
her  by  inheritance  in  the  ranks  of  the  nations  illustrious 
through  their  literary  and  scientific  productivity.  In  Bo- 
hemia Czech  aspirations  are  cherished  by  a  group  of  writers, 
and  in  Belgium  concerted  efforts  are  making  to  estab- 
lish Flemish  as  a  literary  language.  Among  the  colonies  of 
the  British  Empire  and  the  republics  of  South  America 
similar  tendencies  are  at  work.  As  I  write  these  words,  I 
see  an  announcement  of  "A  Treasury  of  South  African  Poetry 
and  Verse."  It  is  not  called  "A  Golden  Treasury,"  although 
it  comes  from  a  region  of  gold  mines,  but  the  editor,  though 
modest,  has  all  the  boldness  one  expects  of  a  pioneer.  He  is 
evidently  rash  enough  to  try  to  distinguish  poetry  from 
verse,  or  else  to  mingle  them  without  discrimination. 

And  within  the  large  nations  themselves  a  somewhat  analo- 
gous tendency  may  be  discovered.  Within  the  past  half 
century  we  have  been  almost  swamped  with  books,  especially 
novels  and  histories,  devoted  to  the  exploitation  of  regions, 
sections,  provinces,  towns,  and  small  localities.  This  local 
Literature  is  partly  no  doubt  the  result  of  a  search  for  some 
new  thing,  partly  the  result  of  the  imitation  of  the  work  of 
the  leaders  of  the  realistic  and  naturalistic  schools  of  fiction, 
partly  the  result  of  an  intensification  of  interest  in  all  that 
pertains  to  the  nation  and  the  race  to  which  the  writer  be- 
longs.    However  this  may  be,  it  is  at  least  clear  that  any  one 


340  THE  COSMOPOLITAN  OUTLOOK 

casually  examining  the  reviews  and  advertisements  in  such 
a  journal  as  the  Athenceum  for  the  past  twenty-five  years 
might  be  tempted  to  declare  that,  while  he  found  many  evi- 
dences of  what  may  be  called  international  influences  in 
Literature,  he  found  little  evidence  of  anything  worthy  of 
being  called  cosmopolitan,  but  on  the  other  hand  much  to 
tempt  him  to  believe  that  the  vast  majority  of  writers  think 
far  less  of  the  world  and  humanity  than  they  do  of  the  na- 
tion, section,  and  race  to  which  they  belong. 

I  am  not  sure  that  I  should  care  to  quarrel  with  any  such 
putative  reader  of  the  dignified  journal  I  have  just  named; 
but  I  am  sure  that,  as  I  have  already  said,  the  cause  of  true 
Cosmopolitanism  in  Literature  is  not  really  jeopardized  by 
the  conditions  that  have  been  described.  True  Cosmopolitan- 
ism, that  is,  citizenship  in  an  ideal  republic  whose  bounds  are 
coextensive  with  those  of  the  entire  human  race,  may  well 
coexist  with  whatever  tends  to  make  that  race  stronger  and 
better,  and  the  local  or  national  Literature  that  is  worthy  of 
the  name  surely  tends  to  make  men  better  men  by  making 
them  better  citizens  of  the  lands  and  localities  in  which  their 
lives  have  been  cast.  If  you  will  let  me  make  a  personal 
application  of  what  I  am  saying,  I  shall  perhaps  be  better 
able  to  bring  out  my  point.  I  read  the  other  day  in  manu- 
script a  little  idyllic  story  of  Southern  life  that  in  its  charm 
reminded  me  of  "Cranford."  When  I  put  that  story  down, 
I  felt  that  I  was  a  better  Southerner  for  having  read  it,  but 
that  I  was  also  a  better  adopted  Northerner  and  a  better 
American.  But,  on  the  same  line  of  reasoning,  was  I  not  a 
better  man,  that  is  a  better  cosmopolitan,  a  better  qualified 
citizen  for  that  ideal  republic  to  which  we  should  all  yield 
our  highest  allegiance?  Surely  I  was,  and  surely  no  man 
in  his  senses  will  protest  against  patriotism  rightly  under- 
stood, or  against  national  and  local  tendencies  in  Literature 
and  Art.  These  are  essential  to  our  mental  and  spiritual 
health  as  men  and  women,  and  it  is  of  healthy  minds  and 


THE  COSMOPOLITAN  OUTLOOK  341 

souls  that  the  ideal  republic  must  be  constituted.  What  we 
have  a  right  to  protest  against  is  near-sightedness  and  nar- 
row-mindedness in  these  matters.  Chauvinistic  patriotism, 
spread-eagleism,  as  we  Americans  call  it,  vulgar  satisfaction 
with  ourselves  and  with  fellow-vulgarians,  childish  strenu- 
osity  and  other  forms  of  noisy  emptiness,  these  defects  of 
character,  when  they  are  embodied  in  books  that  are  mis- 
taken for  Literature,  undoubtedly  retard  the  progress  of  the 
cosmopolitan  spirit,  not  by  making  us  more  patriotic  Ameri- 
cans, Englishmen,  or  Germans,  as  the  case  may  be,  but  by 
making  us  more  intolerable  and  useless  as  men  and  women. 
Much  the  same  thing  is  true  with  regard  to  those  inter- 
national literary  relations  which  many  persons,  I  suspect, 
tend  to  confuse  with  Cosmopolitanism  in  Literature.  In  so  far 
as  improved  facilities  of  intercourse  tend  to  spread  rapidly  a 
knowledge  and  appreciation  of  what  other  peoples  are  doing 
in  the  realms  of  art  and  thought,  and  in  so  far  as  the  influ- 
ence of  foreign  ideas  makes  for  the  lessening  of  intellectual 
narrowness,  without  at  the  same  time  modifying  deleteri- 
ously  the  distinctive  merits  of  the  respective  national 
Literatures,  it  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  we  may  view 
with  gratification  rather  than  with  apprehension  the  present 
status  of  Literature  throughout  the  world.  Even  France, 
the  most  intellectually  self-centered  of  countries,  has  come 
to  display  more  and  more  interest  in  the  Literatures  of  other 
nations  with  no  probable  detriment  to  herself,  and,  in  the 
realm  of  scholarship  at  least,  with  no  Uttle  advantage  to  the 
other  countries.  Witness,  for  example,  the  elaborate  mono- 
graphs upon  British  and  American  writers  which  we  owe  to 
the  industry  and  acumen  of  a  group  of  French  scholars.  As 
to  the  influence  of  French  Literature  upon  our  own,  espe- 
cially in  the  matter  of  form,  there  can  be  little  question  that 
we  owe  much  to  the  country  of  Balzac  and  Augier,  while 
France  itself  owes  something  to  the  country  of  Cooper  and 
Poe.     But  I  must  frankly  confess  that,  while  these  interna- 


342  THE  COSMOPOLITAN   OUTLOOK 

tional  literary  relations  are  important,  especially  to  students 
of  literary  history,  and  while  they  seem  to-day  to  be  in  a 
satisfactory  condition,  I  cannot  perceive  that  the  present  age 
deserves  in  any  especial  degree  to  be  called  cosmopolitan,  or 
that  a  mere  rapid  and  free  interchange  of  ideas  and  books  is 
ipso  facto  a  thing  to  be  devoutly  prayed  for.  It  all  depends, 
I  think,  upon  the  nature  of  the  ideas  and  the  books.  For 
example,  I  notice  that  the  works  of  several  modern  British 
noveUsts  are  speedily  translated  into  French  and  appear  to 
interest  a  small  number  of  Frenclmien;  but  this  seems  to  me 
to  be  a  phenomenon  of  very  minor  importance,  since  it  would 
be  exceedingly  rash  to  prophesy  that  any,  or  at  least  many,  of 
the  books  translated  will  be  read  twenty-five  years  hence 
either  in  France  or  in  England  itself.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  vogue  of  Byron  in  France  and  in  the  rest  of  Europe 
nearly  a  hundred  years  ago,  ought  to  be  looked  upon,  what- 
ever our  personal  animus  toward  Byron,  as  a  phenomenon  of 
great  and  of  cosmopohtan  importance.  The  reason  of  this 
distinction  is  obvious.  The  modern  writers  are  men  of  tal- 
ents, doubtless,  but  in  most  cases  they  are  apparently  desti- 
tute of  large  seminal  thoughts  and  of  ideas  capable  of  arous- 
ing the  emotions  of  whole  peoples,  or  large  sections  of  a 
people.  This  was  not  the  case  with  Byron,  although  it  is 
plain  that  his  great  vogue  was  due,  not  merely  to  his  indi- 
vidual genius,  but  to  the  fact  that  the  French  Revolution 
had  prepared  the  European  pubhc  to  appreciate  his  liberal 
and  fiery  utterances.  Whatever  the  cause  of  his  vogue, 
however,  there  is  no  question  that  his  was  far  more  than  an 
international  influence.  It  was  a  cosmopolitan  influence  of 
great  significance,  because  it  made  for  poUtical  and  individual 
liberty.  With  all  his  faults  Byron  lived  and  died  a  splendid 
fighter  in  the  war  for  humanity.  By  his  side  fought  with 
equal  valor  that  more  ethereal  combatant,  Shelley.  And 
with  them  stood  —  I  will  not  say  fought,  for  it  is  hard  to 
think  of  him  save  as  a  benign  and  beneficent  spirit  —  the  man 


THE  COSMOPOLITAN  OUTLOOK        343 

who  was  probably  —  peace  to  the  shade  of  Thomas  Carlyle  — 
the  noblest  British  writer  of  his  age,  Sir  Walter  Scott.  If  we 
could  believe  that  the  year  1910  would  usher  in  twenty  such 
years  of  really  cosmopolitan  Literature  as  were  ushered  in  by 
1810,  we  ought  to  be  more  than  satisfied  with  the  present 
Cosmopolitan  Outlook. 

But  how  idle  is  all  such  talk!  How  little  do  we  know 
about  the  present,  and  how  less  than  little  we  know  about 
the  future.  Take  your  stand  with  me  for  a  moment  at  the 
year  1710.  Who,  reading  the  two-paged  Daily  Courant  of 
that  year,  or  the  tri-weekly  Post-Boy,  or  the  weekly  Review, 
would  ever  have  thought  that  two  centuries  later  the  news- 
paper press  of  London,  and  New  York,  and  other  great 
cities  would  constitute  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world? 
Who  would  have  foretold  the  rise  of  the  popular  magazine 
or  the  practical  triumph  of  prose  over  verse  as  a  medium 
of  expression  for  almost  every  form  of  Literature?  Who 
would  have  thought  that  the  day  would  ever  come  when  men 
would  seriously  contend  whether  Alexander  Pope,  the  brill- 
iant young  author  of  the  newly  published  "Pastorals" 
was  entitled  to  be  called  a  poet?  Who,  reading  the  ''Mem- 
oirs of  the  Life  and  Adventures  of  Signor  Rozelli,"  perhaps 
the  best  story  of  the  year  1709  and  a  translation  at  that, 
would  have  thought  that  within  a  decade  ''Robinson  Cru- 
soe" would  be  beginning  its  career  of  popularity,  and  that 
about  two  decades  later  the  modern  novel  would  be  born? 
The  year  1710  came  after  a  singularly  barren  decade  that 
followed  the  death  of  Dryden,  and,  if  a  pessimist  had  declared 
at  any  time  during  those  ten  years  that  the  glory  of  British 
poetry  was  forever  eclipsed,  it  would  have  been  difficult  to 
prove  that  he  was  playing  the  part  of  a  superfluous  raven. 
Such  a  pessimist  would  not  have  been  likely  to  clinch  his 
argument  by  exclaiming  that  we  should  never  see  another 
poet  equal  to  Milton,  but,  if  he  had  done  so,  he  would  have 
uttered  a  prophecy  which,  in  the  judgment  of  many,  would 


344  THE   COSMOPOLITAN  OUTLOOK 

have  held  true  for  at  least  two  centuries.  Yes,  this  talk 
about  what  the  future  holds  for  us  is  often  very  idle,  but  it  is 
none  the  less  interesting.  We  are  creatures  designed,  as 
the  poet  tells  us,  to  look  before  and  after.  I  prefer  at  times 
to  look  back  rather  than  forward,  to  point  out  that  we  are 
not  quite  so  wonderful  as  we  think  ourselves;  to  suggest, 
for  example,  that  a  great  general  like  Marlborough,  and  a 
versatile,  dashing  statesman  Uke  BoUngbroke,  must,  despite 
their  earthly  antagonism,  take  more  pleasure  in  conversing 
with  each  other  in  Hades  than  in  watching  as  ghostly  spec- 
tators the  doings  of  whatever  successors  they  may  have  in 
the  England  of  this  year  of  grace.  But  I  have  been  set  up 
here  to  be  a  kind  of  watchman  and  prophet,  not  to  be  a 
laudator  temporis  acti,  and,  to  change  the  figure  suddenly,  I 
must  continue  to  roll  my  stone  up  the  hill  of  futurity  only 
to  have  it  roll  down  again  as  the  stones  of  prophecy  are  for- 
ever doing. 

I  spoke  a  moment  ago  of  the  practical  triumph  of  prose 
over  verse  as  a  medium  of  expression  for  almost  every  form  of 
Literature.  Does  that  mean  that  the  Literature  of  the  future, 
the  Literature  that,  as  we  hope,  is  to  make  for  true  Cosmo- 
politanism, is  to  perform  its  task  of  converting  us  into  citi- 
zens of  the  ideal  republic  without  the  aid  of  new  poetry  an- 
swering to  new  spiritual  and  mental  needs?  Heaven  forbid 
that  I  should  answer  "Yes."  I  could  not  give  so  pessimistic 
an  answer  in  view  of  the  hosts  of  young  poets  who  are  lift- 
ing their  voices  on  high,  a  formidable  band  among  whom  I 
count  enough  friends  and  former  pupils  to  insure  my  dis- 
cretion. We  have  been  told  of  late  that  all  writers  who  are 
unfortunate  enough  to  date  from  the  wrong  side  of  a  certain 
3^ear,  let  us  say  1860,  are  hopelessly  antiquated.  If  that  be 
so,  then  our  younger  poets  need  no  longer  complain  that 
they  are  overshadowed,  and  they  need  pay  no  attention  to 
the  fact  that  the  great  democratic  public  reads,  in  the  main, 
newspapers  and  fiction,  adds  to  these  forms  of  prose  some 


THE  COSMOPOLITAN   OUTLOOK  345 

history  and  biography  and  volumes  of  travel  and  criticism, 
and,  as  a  rule,  leaves  poetry  severely  alone.  Those  of  us, 
however,  who  are  scanning  the  literary  horizon  cannot  so 
easily  shut  our  eyes  to  what  the  large  public  is  doing.  We 
cannot  but  observe,  not  only  that  prose  is  increasingly 
written  and  increasingly  read,  but  that  in  narrative,  dra- 
matic, and  idyllic  work,  that  is  in  a  very  large  portion  of 
imaginative  Literature,  it  has  almost  supplanted  verse. 
Even  for  lyrical  purposes  prose  has  shown  its  adaptability, 
and  it  is  possible  that  in  the  form  of  confessions,  diaries, 
and  jottings  it  may  afford  a  means  of  subjective  utterance 
to  future  writers  who  probably,  if  they  lived  now,  and  cer- 
tainly if  they  had  Hved  in  the  past,  would  turn  or  would  have 
turned  to  poetry.  It  seems  almost  idle  to  deny  that,  with 
rare  exceptions,  the  modern  poet  addresses  a  very  limited  and 
a  very  sophisticated  audience.  These  poets  and  their  read- 
ers may  constitute  a  small  literary  aristocracy,  and  by  their 
talk  and  writing  they  may  secure  a  certain  amount  of  promi- 
nence, but  how  widespread  an  influence  they  exert,  and 
what  the  future  of  any  form  of  aristocracy  is  to  be  in  a  world 
of  ever  increasing  democratic  pressure,  is  more  than  I  or  any 
other  man  can  say.  Certain  it  is  that,  while  some  of  us 
disparage  the  eighteenth  century,  that  age  of  prose  and 
reason  seems  justified  of  its  prose  grandchild,  the  twentieth 
century.  The  glib  critics  who  have  been  borrowing  that 
catch  phrase  "the  Renascence  of  Wonder"  had  better  won- 
der a  little  at  the  dominance  and  the  growing  power  of  that 
instrument  of  expression  which  the  despised  centurj"-  prac- 
tically fashioned.  Most  of  us  even  read  the  great  poems  of 
other  nations  in  prose  translations,  that  is,  when  we  read 
them  at  all. 

It  seems  to  .me  beyond  dispute  that  the  literary  outlook, 
whatever  promise  it  contains  of  the  spread  of  cosmopolitan 
ideas,  contains  abimdant  promise  of  the  spread  of  the  power 
of  prose.     If  the  eighteenth  century  had  not  devoted  itself 


346        THE  COSMOPOLITAN  OUTLOOK 

to  the  task  of  creating  a  serviceable  modem  prose,  the  nine- 
teenth century  would  have  been  obhged  to  essay  it,  for  it  is 
obvious  that  it  was  long  ago  determined  in  the  courts  of 
heaven  that  the  laureate  of  a  Triumphant  Democracy  should 
write  in  unmeasured  language.  I  am  far  from  intending  to 
extol  this  order  of  things;  I  am  merely  doing  my  duty  in 
calling  attention  to  it.  For  old-fashioned  beings  of  whom  it 
may  truly  be  said  that  the  love  of  poetry  is  their  breath  of 
life,  and  I  trust  I  am  one  of  them,  there  is,  however,  no  lack 
of  consolation.  Never  before  were  the  great  poets  so  ac- 
cessible; never  before  were  the  forces  of  education  so  turned 
to  the  task  of  subduing  the  susceptible  mind  of  youth  to  the 
influence  of  the  supreme  poetic  masterpieces.  A  reasonable 
amount  of  pessimism  is,  I  confess,  congenial  to  me,  but  it 
would  seem  positively  foohsh  to  be  altogether  pessimistic 
with  regard  to  the  future  of  poetry  in  the  Ught  of  these  plain 
facts  of  our  democratic  culture.  I  do  not  believe  that  the 
spread  of  cheap  books,  the  foimding  of  hbraries,  the  insistence 
upon  the  study  of  Literature  in  our  schools  and  colleges,  can 
result  in  anything  but  an  absolute  increase  in  the  number  of 
men  and  women  who,  to  quote  Matthew  Arnold's  inspiring 
prophecy,  will  find  in  poetry  "an  ever  surer  and  surer  stay." 
There  is  no  room  for  denying  or  grudging  the  relative  pre- 
ponderance of  prose,  or  for  not  admitting  that  in  many 
respects  it  fulfils  excellently  functions  which  were  of  old  ful- 
filled by  poetry.  But  there  is  equally  no  occasion  for  being 
blind  to  the  fact  that  the  transcendent  glory  of  poetry  is 
unextinguishable.  The  great  poetical  classics  are,  thus  far, 
the  world's  chief  storehouses  of  noble  thought  and  feeHng. 
The  supreme  poets  are  of  all  mortals  our  most  satisfying  and 
unfailing  sources  of  pleasure  and  dehght.  What  matter  if 
the  day  of  the  epic  and  the  poetic  drama  appear  to  be,  not 
precisely  over,  but  far  past  the  meridian?  Are  not  Homer, 
Sophocles,  Vergil,  Dante,  Shakspere,  Milton,  and  Goethe 
in  a  very  true  sense  more  completely  alive  than  ever,  answer- 


THE  COSMOPOLITAN  OUTLOOK  347 

ing  as  they  do  to  the  spiritual  and  mental  needs  of  an  ever 
larger  pubhc?  and  who  shall  say  that  another  master-poet 
may  not  at  any  moment  make  his  appearance,  and  adapt  to 
the  purposes  of  his  genius  the  old  forms  of  poetry  or  else  in- 
vent new  forms?  And  whatever  the  future  of  the  epic  and 
the  poetic  drama,  and  the  idyll  and  the  more  or  less  didactic 
poem,  who  is  rash  enough  to  limit  the  future  scope  and  in- 
fluence of  that  large  and  varied  form  of  more  or  less  personal 
utterance  in  verse  which  we  vaguely  denominate  lyrical 
poetry?  If,  as  seems  not  unlikely,  the  drawing  together  of 
the  nations  and  the  increasing  pressure  of  democracy  tend 
to  render  more  and  more  uniform  and  unspectacular  the 
external  lives  of  men,  may  it  not  well  be  that  the  life  of  the 
mind  and  soul  will  become  to  a  greater  and  greater  degree 
the  province  of  the  writer's  chief  activities,  and  the  scene 
of  the  reader's  greatest  dehghts?  The  success  already 
achieved  by  novehsts  of  a  psychological  type  and  by  diarists 
and  autobiographers,  together  with  the  extraordinary  prog- 
ress made  of  recent  years  in  metrical  technic,  especially  as 
that  is  applied  to  forms  of  lyric,  would  seem  to  warrant  the 
expectation  that,  even  should  the  objective  types  of  Liter- 
ature, and  particularly  of  poetry,  undergo  a  permanent 
decline,  the  subjective  types  may  well  experience  a  corre- 
sponding development.  It  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that 
the  birth  of  new  forms  of  Literature  does  not  imply  the  death 
of  old  forms,  so  far  as  concerns  the  life-giving  power  of  the 
latter.  Scott's  novels  are  still  read  and  will  continue  to  be 
read  even  in  this  "up-to-date"  country  of  ours,  in  which  Mr. 
Henry  James,  Jr.,  first  hailed  the  light  of  day  with  a  saluta- 
tion so  intricately  phrased  and  so  dissimilar  to  "that  large 
utterance  of  the  early  gods"  that  it  has  been  puzzling  Hy- 
perion ever  since. 

What  I  have  just  been  saying  about  the  possible  prepon- 
derance of  subjective  over  objective  Literature  may  seem  at 
first  thought  to  be  contradicted  by  certain  aspects  of  the  life 


348  THE  COSMOPOLITAN  OUTLOOK 

and  Literature  of  to-day.  The  life  of  action  has  been  led  and 
preached  by  many  notable  men,  its  exhilaration  has  been 
celebrated  in  prose  and  verse,  and  it  has  been  illustrated 
recently  by  achievements  too  fresh  in  your  minds  to  demand 
specification.  Never  before  were  men  more  widely  awake 
to  the  outward  facts  of  the  Uves  of  other  men,  and  never 
before  was  their  curiosity  with  regard  to  objective  details  so 
catered  to  as  by  latter-day  journaUsm.  Compare  what  the 
average  citizen  of  the  spacious  times  of  Queen  EUzabeth 
knew  of  what  was  going  on  in  the  world  with  what  the  aver- 
age subject  of  the  literally  more  spacious  empire  of  King 
George  knows.  Listen  to  the  outcries  that  are  raised  against 
the  continuous  flow  of  population  to  the  cities  and  the  dechne, 
not  merely  of  rural,  but  of  private,  life.  Think  of  the  part 
played  in  our  civiUzation  by  the  objective  sciences,  and  by 
the  colossal,  more  or  less  materiahstic,  forms  of  industry. 
What  chance  is  there  in  our  roaring  modem  chaos  for  the 
cultivation  of  those  choice  gifts  of  the  spirit  which  are  so 
essential  to  the  creation  of  great  subjective  Literature,  re- 
pose, and  observation,  and  reflection?  Some  satirically 
minded  persons  actually  doubt  our  power  to  think  a  real 
thought,  just  as  with  reason  they  complain  that  nowadays 
no  one  writes  a  charming  or  an  interesting  letter.  They 
believe  that,  following  the  example  of  the  Southern  conven- 
tion which  shortly  before  the  Civil  War  resolved,  according 
to  the  story,  that  there  should  be  a  Southern  Literature 
and  that  WilUam  Gilmore  Simms,  Esq.,  should  be  requested 
to  write  it,  the  entire  country  will  soon  resolve  that  there 
be  an  American  thought  and  that  President  or  Ex-President 
So  and  So  be  requested  to  think  it. 

To  certain  types  of  mind  the  picture  I  have  just  drawn 
will  seem  a  caricature;  to  other  types  it  may  seem  sur- 
charged with  a  depressing  realism.  I  will  not  defend  it  or 
explain  it,  except  to  say  that  I  am  far  from  beheving  that  we 
axe  warranted  in  viewing  the  status  of  modem  life  with  dis- 


THE  COSMOPOLITAN  OUTLOOK        349 

gust  or  the  future  with  trepidation.  I  doubt  whether  any 
one  can  prove  that  we  are  a  whit  more  materialistic  than 
our  fathers  were ;  in  fact,  the  supposition  that  we  are  scarcely 
harmonizes  with  what  we  know  about  the  course  of  human 
history  and  the  evolution  of  the  human  mind  and  body.  To 
sensitive  spirits  the  jar  of  our  modem  civihzation  is  as  dis- 
agreeable as  the  vibration  of  the  machinery  in  one  of  our 
mammoth  and  swift  steamships.  But  the  steamship  carries 
us  safely,  and  our  civilization  will  probably  carry  us  safely, 
too.  We  are  awake  to  our  present  discomforts;  we  forget 
the  evils  that  have  been  left  behind.  Never  before  was 
human  vulgarity  so  flaunted  in  our  faces,  but  that  is  mainly 
because  our  senses  have  been,  as  it  were,  extended  by  the  tele- 
phone, the  telegraph,  the  printing-press,  and  similar  in- 
strumentalities, and  because  the  masses  have  been  rapidly 
losing  their  apathy,  and  have  been  compelling  recognition 
of  the  fact  that  they  are  human  beings,  not  chattels.  The 
evolution  is,  on  the  whole,  natural  and,  as  always,  it  has  not 
been  uniform.  We  have  gained  in  wealth  and  comfort;  we 
have  probably  lost  in  some  of  the  aristocratic  graces  and 
amenities  of  hfe.  For  example,  we  no  sooner  win  a  triumph 
of  any  kind  than  we  forthwith  proceed  to  vulgarize  it.  Our 
heroes  get  into  squabbles  and  go  on  the  lecture  platform. 
Our  publishers  and  magazines  force  the  genius  of  a  promis- 
ing writer,  and  often  kill  it.  But  we  have  the  heroes  and  the 
men  of  genius,  and  I  see  no  special  reason  to  doubt  either 
that  we  shall  learn  to  foster  them  better  or  that  they  will 
learn  to  preserve  themselves.  And  meanwhile  the  masses 
of  the  people  have  not  only  been  growing  in  wealth  and 
leisure,  but,  what  is  more  important,  they  have  been  be- 
coming more  and  more  conscious  of  the  great  and  beautiful 
in  conduct  and  in  art.  In  other  words,  we  are  probably 
warranted  in  sajdng  of  our  generation,  as  of  every  other  gen- 
eration perhaps  for  several  centuries  past,  that  it  is  gaining 
more  than  it  is  losing. 


350        THE  COSMOPOLITAN  OUTLOOK 

But  I  have  not  yet  fully  explained  why  I  think  that,  despite 
the  objectivity  of  modem  Hfe,  the  future  of  Literature  may 
lie  largely  in  the  realms  of  the  subjective.  I  think  this  be- 
cause it  seems  to  me  that  the  growing  pressure  of  democracy, 
which  is  all  the  stronger  because  of  the  colossal  and  materi- 
alistic character  of  much  of  our  civilization,  and  the  smooth- 
ing down  or  obhteration  of  national  and  racial  idiosyncrasies, 
which  seems  destined  to  result  from  the  drawing  together 
of  the  peoples,  must  sooner  or  later  force  the  strongly  in- 
dividual mind  and  soul  back,  as  it  were,  upon  themselves  and 
stimulate  their  subjective  utterance.  If  the  society  of  the 
future  is  to  be  more  or  less  sociaUstic  in  type,  and  if  the  earth 
is  destined  to  become  one  great  peaceable  workshop  of  hu- 
manity, the  forces  of  individuaUsm  will  either  diminish  in 
power  or  seek  new  outlets.  Certain  types  of  leaders  may  be- 
come even  more  influential  and  spectacular  in  action  than 
ever  before  —  I  hope  they  will  not  be  the  demagogues  of  the 
future  —  certain  kinds  of  artists  may  exploit  their  genius  in 
large  and  essentially  objective  achievements;  but  the  major- 
ity of  writers,  especially  the  poets  and  the  critics,  may  not 
improbably  find  that  the  lines  of  least  resistance  to  their  tal- 
ents or  genius  lie  in  the  fields  of  subjective  rather  than  of 
objective  Literature,  and  the  majority  of  men  and  women, 
deprived  more  and  more  of  their  opportunities  for  outward 
distinction,  by  reason  of  what  may  be  called  their  mere  atom- 
istic status  in  the  social  mass,  and  rendered  more  subtle 
and  acute  in  their  mental  and  aesthetic  faculties  through 
education  and  the  cumulative  influences  of  heredity,  may  not 
only  find  their  chief  solace  and  inspiration  in  reading,  but 
may  seek  it  in  the  works  of  writers  who  like  themselves  are 
the  slaves  as  well  as  the  exponents  of  a  self-centered  sub- 
jectivity. 

This  generaHzation  is,  I  opine,  suflficiently  hazardous  to 
satisfy  latter-day  requirements,  but  it  should  be  observed 
that  it  might  be  supported,  did  time  permit,  by  certain  ar- 


THE  COSMOPOLITAN  OUTLOOK  351 

guments  drawn  from  the  history  of  Literature.  It  is  sup- 
ported, also,  by  the  normal  tendency  of  human  nature  to 
avoid  contests  with  the  immortals.  Once  or  twice  a  Diomede 
may  engage  in  combat  with  a  god,  and  here  and  there  the 
triumphs  of  the  objective  masters  of  the  past  may  be  chal- 
lenged; but  the  tendency  will  almost  surely  be  to  leave  those 
divine  masters  standing  on  their  isolated  elevations,  and  to 
press  forward  into  new  paths  for  new  victories,  whether  easier 
than  the  old  or  not,  it  would  be  ungracious  to  inquire.  But 
what,  in  the  midst  of  all  this  generalization,  has  become  of 
the  subject  I  am  supposed  to  be  in  the  main  discussing,  the 
subject  of  Cosmopolitanism?  Has  it  vanished  out  of  sight? 
Not  completely,  I  trust,  or  at  any  rate  not  so  far  that  it 
cannot  be  hauled  down  by  the  string  of  desultory  specula- 
tion, much  as  small  boys  haul  down  their  kites.  I  shall  try 
to  get  it  down  in  the  following  way.  The  writers  of  the  fu- 
ture, if  they  exploit  the  personal  types  of  Literature,  will 
surely  make  for  the  spread  of  the  spirit  of  true  CosmopoUtan- 
ism,  by  developing  in  themselves  and  their  readers  an  ever 
increasing  respect  for  man,  the  center  of  the  new  Literature 
and  of  the  new  society.  The  more  man  is  dwarfed  in  his 
outward  position  in  the  social  order,  the  more,  if  he  is  to  pre- 
serve his  dignity,  nay  his  civilization,  he  must  uphold  his 
essential  nobility  as  a  child  of  God.  The  huger  and  the  more 
crushing  our  democracy,  the  more  sacred  grow  the  rights  of 
man  as  man,  —  a  fact  of  which  sociological  students  and  work- 
ers are  fully  conscious,  and  of  which  the  general  pubhc  is 
vaguely  conscious.  But  a  recognition  of  the  rights  of  man 
as  man  is,  as  we  saw,  an  essential  element  of  true  Cosmopoli- 
tanism. It  is  also  an  essential  element  of  all  subjective 
Literature  that  is  worthy  of  the  name.  Hence  we  seem 
warranted  in  concluding  that,  if  the  Literature  of  the  future 
becomes  increasingly  personal  and  subjective,  it  will  also  be- 
come increasingly  effective  in  the  spread  of  true  Cosmopoli- 
tanism; that  is,  in  the  spread  of  the  spirit  that  makes  for 


352        THE  COSMOPOLITAN  OUTLOOK 

citizenship  in  the  ideal  repiibUc.  And  in  thus  serving  the 
cause  of  CosmopoUtanism,  the  Literature  of  the  future  will 
also  serve  itself,  I  believe,  in  one  very  important  way.  We 
are  accustomed  to  think  of  the  commanding  character  of 
the  great  works  of  objective  Literature  and  to  invest  their 
creators  with  an  atmosphere  of  grandeur.  The  great  works 
of  subjective  art  somehow  seem  smaller  to  us.  Set  the  son- 
nets of  Shakspere,  for  example,  over  against  three  or  four 
of  his  greatest  plays  and  see  whether  you  do  not  imderstand 
what  I  am  trying  to  say.  Anything,  then,  that  will  make  for 
the  largeness  and  dignity  of  subjective  Literature  is  to  be 
welcomed  if  that  Literature  is  to  be  dominant  in  the  future. 
Such  an  element  of  largeness  and  of  true  grandeur  is  to  be 
found  in  the  services  the  Literature  of  the  future  may  render 
to  the  sacred  cause  of  human  brotherhood.  And  in  per- 
forming those  services  the  writer,  be  he  poet  or  proseman, 
need  by  no  means  eschew  all  the  forms  of  objective  art.  He 
may  take  the  older  forms  and  infuse  them  with  the  spirit 
of  subjectivity  and  personality.  He  may  serve  the  cause  of 
Cosmopolitanism  as  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy  has  done  in  his 
amorphous  but  great  poetic  drama,  ''The  Djmasts."  He 
may  inspire  a  detestation  of  war  and  an  acquiescence  in  the 
reign  of  that  democracy  which  will,  we  trust,  afford  no  scope 
for  the  sinister  energies  of  another  Napoleon.  Yes,  the  out- 
look for  Cosmopolitanism  is  also  the  outlook  for  large  and 
noble  work  on  the  part  of  every  writer  filled  with  love  for  his 
fellow-men.  I  refuse  to  believe  that  the  future  is  with  the 
shallow  writers  who  glory  in  war  and  who  hear  in  the  whir 
of  machinery  the  only  voice  of  God. 

But  in  this  mixed  hfe  of  ours  every  incitement  must  be 
accompanied  by  a  warning.  We  may  rightfully  cherish 
splendid  hopes  for  the  future  of  Literature  and  of  life  upon 
this  planet  of  ours,  but  we  must  remember  that  the  forces  of 
civilization  move  slowly  and  that  the  law  of  loss  and  gain 
will  not  soon  be  abrogated.     For  many  an  age  to  come  new 


THE  COSMOPOLITAN  OUTLOOK        353 

parties,  new  social  movements,  new  schools  of  art  and  thought, 
will  have  their  birth,  maturity,  and  death,  and  still  the  ideal 
republic  will  seem  to  lie  on  the  horizon,  or  only  just  beyond 
it.  New  achievements  of  the  spirit  of  man  will  fill  the  world 
with  enthusiasm,  but  thoughtful  men  will  still  be  puzzled  to 
determine  whether  on  the  whole  to  laugh  or  cry  at  the  game 
of  life  they  see  playing  before  their  eyes.  When  the  South 
Pole  is  discovered,  the  first  objects  the  wise  discoverer  will 
look  for  will  be  two  spectral  forms  crouching  upon  the  desid- 
erated and  liitherto  inaccessible  spot,  the  shades  of  Democ- 
ritus  and  of  Herachtus,  of  the  philosopher  who  was  forever 
laughing  at  the  folUes  of  mankind  and  of  the  philosopher 
who  was  forever  weeping  at  them. 

The  mention  of  Democritus  and  Heraclitus,  and  of  the 
folly  of  mankind,  suggests  naturally  the  propriety  of  my 
bringing  this  lecture  to  a  conclusion,  lest  you  should  take  it 
upon  yourselves  to  play  the  philosophers  and  leave  me  hold- 
ing the  floor  of  folly.  I  shall  merely  say,  therefore,  that 
while  as  a  lecturer  I  deem  it  my  duty  to  see  as  much  good 
as  I  can  in  the  present  and  future  of  Literature,  as  a  man  I 
am  naturally  disposed  to  sympathize  with  Heraclitus.  The 
particular  folly  that  draws  my  tears  is  the  undue  neglect  of  the 
ancient  classics  in  our  education  and  the  consequently  in- 
creasing lack  of  their  beneficent  influence  upon  our  Litera- 
ture. I  miss  their  simple  power  and  their  pure  charm,  and 
I  fear  lest,  as  the  years  go  by,  not  only  will  these  essential 
qualities  of  the  very  highest  Literature  be  less  perceptible, 
but  that  there  will  be  fewer  readers  trained  to  demand  them. 
I  trust  that  this  is  an  entirely  unjustifiable  manifestation  of 
my  pessimistic  bias.  I  trust  that  the  vital  energy  of  some 
of  our  writers,  the  subtle  and  studied  art  of  others,  the  spir- 
itual aspirations  of  others  who  draw  some,  at  least,  of  their 
inspiration  from  the  great  ages  of  faith,  the  high  unselfish 
ideahsm  of  others  who  draw  their  inspiration  from  the  needs 
of  the  present  and  the  promise  of  the  future,  will  all  work  in 

2a 


354  THE  COSMOPOLITAN  OUTLOOK 

harmony  to  give  us  a  Literature  which  in  power  and  beauty- 
will  be  worthy  to  vie  with  that  of  Greece  itself.  But  I  should 
be  dishonest  if  I  confounded  my  hopes  with  my  beliefs. 
When,  O  you  disdainful,  strenuous  moderns,  and  you  mystic 
and  sentimental  neo-medievalists,  and  you  eager-eyed,  altru- 
istic cosmopohtans  of  the  future,  when  will  you  ever  give  us 
anything  comparable  with  that  superb  Iliad,  with  its  rolling 
rhythm,  its  stirring  action,  its  heroic  characters,  its  impres- 
sive scenes,  its  large,  simple  truth  to  nature,  and  its  charm  of 
the  far-off  past  ? 


XVIII 

LITERARY  CRITICISM 

By  J.  E.  Spingarn,  Professor  of  Comparative 
Literature 

"What  droll  creatures  these  college  professors  are  whenever 
they  talk  about  art,"  wrote  Flaubert  in  one  of  his  letters,  and 
voiced  the  world's  opinion  of  academic  criticism.  For  the 
world  shares  the  view  of  the  Italian  poet  that  "monks  and 
professors  cannot  write  the  lives  of  poets,"  and  looks  only  to 
those  rich  in  literary  experience  for  its  opinions  on  Literature. 
But  the  poets  themselves  have  had  no  special  grudge  agains 
academic  criticism  that  they  have  not  felt  equally  for  every 
other  kind.  For  the  most  part,  they  have  objected  to  all 
criticism,  since  what  each  mainly  seeks  in  his  own  case  is  not 
criticism,  but  uncritical  praise.  "Kill  the  dog,  he  is  a  re- 
viewer," cried  the  young  Goethe;  and  in  our  own  age  William 
Morris  expressed  his  contempt  for  those  who  earn  a  livelihood 
by  writing  their  opinions  of  the  works  of  others.  Fortunately 
for  criticism,  it  does  not  live  by  the  grace  of  poets,  to  whom 
it  can  be  of  small  service  at  its  best,  but  by  the  grace  of  others 
who  have  neither  the  poet's  genius  nor  the  critic's  insight.  I 
hope  to  persuade  you  this  evening  that  the  poets  have  been 
mistaken  in  their  very  conception  of  the  critic's  craft,  which 
lives  by  a  power  that  poets  and  critics  share  together.  The 
secret  of  this  power  has  come  to  men  slowly  and  the  knowl- 
edge they  have  gained  by  it  has  transformed  their  idea  of 
Criticism.  What  this  secret  is,  and  into  what  new  paths 
Criticism  is  being  led  by  it,  is  the  subject  of  my  lecture 
to-night. 

355 


356  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

At  the  end  of  the  last  century,  France  once  more  occupied 
the  center  of  that  stage  whose  auditors  are  the  inheritors  of 
European  civiHzation.  Once  more  all  the  world  listened 
while  she  talked  and  played,  and  some  of  the  most  briUiant 
of  her  talk  was  now  on  the  question  of  the  authority  of  Criti- 
cism. It  is  not  my  purpose  to  tell  you  (what  you  know  already) 
with  what  sober  and  vigorous  learning  the  official  critics  of 
the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes  espoused  the  cause  of  old  gods 
with  the  new  weapons  of  science,  and  with  what  charm  and 
tact,  with  what  grace  and  suppleness  of  thought,  Jules  Le- 
maitre  and  Anatole  France,  to  mention  no  others,  defended 
the  free  play  of  the  appreciative  mind.  Some  of  the  sparks 
that  were  beaten  out  on  the  anvil  of  controversy  have  become 
fixed  stars,  the  classical  utterances  of  Criticism,  as  when 
Anatole  France  described  the  critic  not  as  a  judge  imposing 
sentence,  but  as  a  sensitive  soul  detailing  his  "adventures 
among  masterpieces." 

To  have  sensations  in  the  presence  of  a  work  of  art  and  to 
express  them,  that  is  the  function  of  Criticism  for  the  impres- 
sionistic critic.  His  attitude  he  would  express  somewhat  in 
this  fashion:  "Here  is  a  beautiful  poem,  let  us  say  'Prome- 
theus Unbound.'  To  read  it  is  for  me  to  experience  a  thrill  of 
pleasure.  My  delight  in  it  is  itself  a  judgment,  and  what 
better  judgment  is  it  possible  for  me  to  give?  All  that  I  can 
do  is  to  tell  how  it  affects  me,  what  sensations  it  gives  me. 
Other  men  will  derive  other  sensations  from  it,  and  express 
them  differently;  they  too  have  the  same  right  as  I.  Each 
of  us,  if  we  are  sensitive  to  impressions  and  express  ourselves 
well,  will  produce  a  new  work  of  art  to  replace  the  work  which 
gave  us  our  sensations.  That  is  the  art  of  criticism,  and 
beyond  that  criticism  cannot  go."  We  shall  not  begrudge 
this  exquisite  soul  the  pleasure  of  his  sensations  or  his  cult  of 
them,  nor  would  he  be  disconcerted  if  we  were  to  point  out 
that  the  interest  has  been  shifted  from  the  work  of  art  to  his 
own  impressions.     Let  us  suppose  that  you  say  to  him: 


LITERARY  CRITICISM  357 

"We  are  not  interested  in  you,  but  in  'Prometheus  Unbound.' 
To  describe  the  state  of  your  health  is  not  to  help  us  to  un- 
derstand or  to  enjoy  the  poem.  Your  criticism  constantly 
tends  to  get  away  from  the  work  of  art,  and  to  center  atten- 
tion on  yourself  and  your  feelings."  But  his  answer  would 
not  be  difficult  to  find :  "What  you  say  is  true  enough.  My 
criticism  tends  to  get  farther  and  farther  from  the  work  of 
art  and  to  cast  a  light  upon  myself;  but  all  criticism  tends 
to  get  away  from  the  work  of  art  and  to  substitute  something 
in  its  place.  The  impressionist  substitutes  himself,  but  what 
other  form  of  criticism  gets  closer  to  'Prometheus  Unbound'? 
Historical  criticism  takes  us  away  from  it  in  a  search  of  the 
environment,  the  age,  the  race,  the  poetic  school  of  the  artist ; 
it  tells  us  to  read  the  history  of  the  French  Revolution, 
Godwin's  'PoHtical  Justice,'  the  'Prometheus  Bound'  of 
iEschylus,  and  Calderon's  'Magico  Prodigioso.'  Psycho- 
logical criticism  takes  me  away  from  the  poem,  and  sets  me 
to  work  on  the  biography  of  the  poet  ;  I  wish  to  enjoy 
'Prometheus  Unbound,'  and  instead  I  am  asked  to  become 
acquainted  with  Shelley  the  man.  Dogmatic  criticism  does 
not  get  any  closer  to  the  work  of  art  by  testing  it  according 
to  rules  and  standards  ;  it  sends  me  to  the  Greek  dramatists, 
to  Shakspere,  to  Aristotle's  'Poetics,'  possibly  to  Darwin's 
'Origin  of  Species,'  in  order  that  I  may  see  how  far  Shelley 
has  failed  to  give  dramatic  reality  to  his  poem,  or  has  failed 
to  observe  the  rules  of  his  genre;  but  that  means  the  study  of 
other  works,  and  not  of  'Prometheus  Unbound.'  ^Esthetics 
takes  me  still  farther  afield  into  speculations  on  art  and 
beauty.  And  so  it  is  with  every  form  of  criticism.  Do  not 
deceive  yourself.  All  criticism  tends  to  shift  the  interest 
from  the  work  of  art  to  something  else.  The  other  critics 
give  us  history,  politics,  biography,  erudition,  metaphysics. 
As  for  me,  I  re-dream  the  poet's  dream,  and  if  I  seem  to  write 
lightly,  it  is  because  I  have  awakened,  and  smile  to  think  I 
have  mistaken  a  dream  for  reality.    I  at  least  strive  to  replace 


358  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

one  work  of  art  by  another,  and  art  can  only  find  its  alter  ego 
in  art." 

It  would  be  idle  to  detail  the  arguments  with  which  the 
advocates  of  the  opposing  forms  of  Criticism  answered  these 
questionings.  Literary  erudition  and  evolutionary  science 
were  the  chief  weapons  used  to  fight  this  modern  heresy,  but 
the  one  is  an  unwieldy  and  the  other  a  useless  weapon  in  the 
field  of  aesthetic  thought.  On  some  sides,  at  least,  the  posi- 
tion of  the  impressionists  was  impregnable;  but  two  points 
of  attack  were  open  to  their  opponents.  They  could  combat 
the  notion  that  taste  is  a  substitute  for  learning,  or  learning 
a  substitute  for  taste,  since  both  are  vital  for  Criticism  ; 
and  they  could  maintain  that  the  relativity  of  taste  does  not 
in  any  sense  affect  its  authority.  But  these  arguments  are 
not  my  present  concern ;  what  I  wish  to  point  out  is  that  the 
objective  and  dogmatic  forms  of  Criticism  were  fighting  no 
new  battle  against  impressionistic  Criticism  in  that  decade 
of  controversy.  It  was  a  battle  as  old  as  the  earliest  reflection 
on  the  subject  of  poetry,  if  not  as  old  as  the  sensitiveness  of 
poets.  Modern  literature  begins  with  the  same  doubts,  with 
the  same  quarrel.  In  the  sixteenth  century  the  Italians  were 
formulating  that  classical  code  which  imposed  itself  on 
Europe  for  two  centuries,  and  which,  even  in  our  generation, 
Brunetiere  has  merely  disguised  under  the  trappings  of 
natural  science.  They  evolved  the  dramatic  unities,  and  all 
those  rules  which  the  poet  Pope  imagined  to  be  "Nature 
still  but  Nature  methodized."  But  at  the  very  moment 
when  their  spokesman  Scaliger  was  saying  that  "Aristotle 
is  our  emperor,  the  perpetual  dictator  of  all  the  fine  arts," 
another  Italian,  Pietro  Aretino,  was  insisting  that  there  is 
no  rule  except  the  whim  of  genius  and  no  standard  of  judgment 
beyond  individual  taste. 

The  Italians  passed  on  the  torch  to  the  French  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  from  that  day  to  this  the  struggle  be- 
tween the  two  schools  has  never  ceased  to  agitate  the  progress 


LITERARY  CRITICISM  359 

of  Criticism  in  France.  Boileau  against  Saint-Evremond, 
Classicists  against  Romanticists,  dogmatists  against  impres- 
sionists, —  the  antinomy  is  deep  in  the  French  nature,  indeed 
in  the  nature  of  Criticism  itself.  Listen  to  this:  "It  is  not 
for  the  purpose  of  deciding  on  the  merit  of  this  noble  poet 
[Vergil],  nor  of  harming  his  reputation,  that  I  have  spoken  so 
freely  concerning  him.  The  world  will  continue  to  think 
what  it  does  of  his  beautiful  verses;  and  as  for  me,  I  judge 
nothing,  I  only  say  what  I  think,  and  what  effect  each  of  these 
things  produces  on  my  heart  and  mind."  Surely  these  words 
are  from  the  lips  of  Lemaitre  himself!  "I  judge  nothing; 
I  only  say  what  I  feel."  But  no,  these  are  the  utterances 
of  the  Chevalier  de  Mere,  a  wit  of  the  age  of  Louis  XIV,  and 
he  is  writing  to  the  secretary  of  that  stronghold  of  authority, 
the  French  Academy.  For  some  men,  even  in  the  age  of 
Boileau,  criticism  was  nothing  but  an  "adventure  among 
masterpieces." 

No,  it  is  no  new  battle;  it  is  the  perpetual  conflict  of  Criti- 
cism. In  every  age  impressionism  (or  enjoyment)  and  dog- 
matism (or  judgment)  have  grappled  with  one  another.  They 
are  the  two  sexes  of  Criticism;  and  to  say  that  they  flourish 
in  every  age  is  to  say  that  every  age  has  its  masculine  as  well 
as  its  feminine  criticism, —  the  masculine  criticism  that 
may  or  may  not  force  its  own  standards  on  Literature,  but 
that  never  at  all  events  is  dominated  by  the  object  of  its 
studies;  and  the  feminine  criticism  that  responds  to  the  lure 
of  art  with  a  kind  of  passive  ecstasy.  In  the  age  of  Boileau 
it  was  the  masculine  type  which  gave  the  tone  to  Criticism; 
in  our  own,  outside  of  the  universities,  it  has  certainly  been 
the  feminine.  But  they  continue  to  exist  side  by  side,  ever 
falling  short  of  their  highest  powers,  unless  mystically  mated, 
—  judgment  erecting  its  edicts  into  arbitrary  standards  and 
conventions,  enjoyment  lost  in  the  mazes  of  its  sensuous  in- 
decision. 

Yet  if  we  examine  these  opposing  forms  of  Criticism  in 


360  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

our  own  age,  we  shall  find,  I  think,  that  they  are  not  wholly 
without  a  common  ground  to  meet  on ;  that,  in  fact,  they  are 
united  in  at  least  one  prepossession  which  they  do  not  share 
with  the  varying  forms  of  Criticism  in  any  of  the  earlier 
periods  of  its  history.  The  Greeks  conceived  of  Literature, 
not  as  an  inevitable  expression  of  creative  power,  but  as  a 
reasoned  ''imitation"  or  re-shaping  of  the  materials  of  life; 
for  Aristotle,  poetry  is  the  result  of  man's  imitative  instinct, 
and  differs  from  history  and  science  in  that  it  deals  with  the 
probable  or  possible  rather  than  with  the  real.  The  Romans 
conceived  of  Literature  as  a  noble  art,  intended  (though  under 
the  guise  of  pleasure)  to  inspire  men  with  high  ideals  of  life. 
The  classicists  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries 
accepted  this  view  in  the  main;  for  them.  Literature  was  a 
kind  of  exercise,  —  a  craft  acquired  by  study  of  the  classics, 
and  guided  in  the  interpretation  of  nature  by  the  traditions 
of  Greek  and  Roman  art.  For  these  men  Literature  was  as 
much  a  product  of  reason  as  science  or  history.  The  eight- 
eenth century  complicated  the  course  of  Criticism  by  the 
introduction  of  vague  and  novel  criteria,  such  as  "unagina- 
tion,"  "  sentiment,"  and  "taste."  But  with  the  Romantic 
Movement  there  developed  the  new  idea  which  coordinates 
all  Criticism  in  the  nineteenth  century.  Very  early  in  the 
century,  Mme.  de  Stael  and  others  formulated  the  idea  that 
Literature  is  an  "expression  of  society."  Victor  Cousin 
founded  the  school  of  art  for  art's  sake,  enunciating  "the 
fundamental  rule,  that  expression  is  the  supreme  law  of  art." 
Later,  Sainte-Beuve  developed  and  illustrated  his  theory 
that  Literature  is  an  expression  of  personality.  Still  later, 
under  the  influence  of  natural  science,  Taine  took  a  hint  from 
Hegel  and  elaborated  the  idea  that  Literature  is  an  expression 
of  race,  age,  and  environment.  The  extreme  impressionists 
prefer  to  think  of  art  as  the  exquisite  expression  of  delicate  and 
fluctuating  sensations  or  impressions  of  life.  But  for  all  these 
critics  and  theorists,  Literature  is  an  expression  of  something, 


LITERARY  CRITICISM  361 

of  experience  or  emotion,  of  the  external  or  internal,  of  the 
man  himself  or  something  outside  the  man;  yet  it  is  always 
conceived  of  as  an  art  of  expression.  The  objective,  the  dog- 
matic, the  impressionistic  critics  of  our  day  may  set  for  them- 
selves very  different  tasks,  but  the  idea  of  expression  is  im- 
plicit in  all  they  write.  They  have,  as  it  were,  this  bond  of 
blood :  they  are  not  merely  man  and  woman,  but  brother  and 
sister;  and  their  father,  or  grandfather,  was  Sainte-Beuve. 
The  bitter  but  acute  analysis  of  his  talent  which  Nietzsche 
has  given  us  in  the  "Twilight  of  the  Idols"  brings  out  very 
clearly  this  dual  side  of  his  seminal  power,  the  feminine  sensi- 
tiveness and  the  masculine  detachment.  For  Nietzsche,  he 
is  "nothing  of  a  man;  he  wanders  about,  dehcate,  curious, 
tired,  pumping  people,  a  female  after  all,  with  a  woman's 
revengefulness  and  a  woman's  sensuousness,  a  critic  without 
a  standard,  without  firmness,  and  without  backbone."  Here 
it  is  the  impressionist  in  Sainte-Beuve  that  arouses  the  Ger- 
man's wrath.  But  in  the  same  breath  we  find  Nietzsche 
blaming  him  for  ''holding  up  objectivity  as  a  mask";  and  it 
is  on  this  objective  side  that  Sainte-Beuve  becomes  the  source 
of  all  those  historical  and  psychological  forms  of  critical 
study  which  have  influenced  the  academic  thought  of  our 
day,  leading  insensibly,  but  inevitably,  from  empirical  inves- 
tigation to  empirical  law.  The  pedigree  of  the  two  schools 
thereafter  is  not  difficult  to  trace :  on  the  one  side,  from  Sainte- 
Beuve  through  I'art  pour  Fart  to  impressionism,  and  on  the 
other,  from  Sainte-Beuve  through  Taine  to  Brunetiere  and  his 
egregious  kin. 

French  criticism  has  been  leaning  heavily  on  the  idea  of 
expression  for  a  century  or  more,  but  no  attempt  has  been 
made  in  France  to  understand  its  aesthetic  content,  except 
for  a  few  vague  echoes  of  German  thought.  For-  the  first 
to  give  philosophic  precision  to  the  theory  of  expression,  and 
to  found  a  method  of  Criticism  based  upon  it,  were  the  Ger- 
mans of  the  age  that  stretches  from  Herder  to  Hegel.     All 


362  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

the  forces  of  philosophical  thought  were  focused  on  this  cen- 
tral concept,  while  the  critics  enriched  themselves  from  out 
this  golden  store.  I  suppose  you  all  remember  the  famous 
passage  in  which  Carlyle  describes  the  achievement  of  Ger- 
man criticism  in  that  age.  "Criticism,"  says  Carlyle,  "has 
assumed  a  new  form  in  Germany.  It  proceeds  on  other  prin- 
ciples and  proposes  to  itself  a  higher  aim.  The  main  question 
is  not  now  a  question  concerning  the  qualities  of  diction,  the 
coherence  of  metaphors,  the  fitness  of  sentiments,  the  general 
logical  truth  in  a  work  of  art,  as  it  was  some  half  century 
ago  among  most  critics,  neither  is  it  a  question  mainly  of  a 
psychological  sort  to  be  answered  by  discovering  and  deline- 
ating the  peculiar  nature  of  the  poet  from  his  poetry,  as  is 
usual  with  the  best  of  our  own  critics  at  present;  but  it  is, 
not  indeed  exclusively,  but  inclusively,  of  its  two  other  ques- 
tions, properly  and  ultimately  a  question  of  the  essence  and 
peculiar  life  of  the  poetry  itself.  .  .  .  The  problem  is  not 
now  to  determine  by  what  mechanism  Addison  composed 
sentences  and  struck  out  similitudes,  but  by  what  far  finer 
and  more  mysterious  mechanism  Shakspere  organized  his 
dramas  and  gave  life  and  individuality  to  his  Ariel  and  his 
Hamlet.  Wherein  lies  that  life;  how  have  they  attained  that 
shape  and  individuahty?  Whence  comes  that  empyrean 
fire  which  irradiates  their  whole  being  and  appears  at  least 
in  starry  gleams?  Are  these  dramas  of  his  not  veri-similar 
only,  but  true;  nay,  truer  than  reahty  itself,  since  the  essence 
of  unmixed  reality  is  bodied  forth  in  them  under  more  ex- 
pressive similes?  What  is  this  unity  of  pleasures;  and  can 
our  deeper  inspection  discern  it  to  be  indivisible  and  existing 
by  necessity  because  each  work  springs  as  it  were  from  the 
general  elements  of  thought  and  grows  up  therefrom  into 
form  and  expansion  by  its  own  growth?  Not  only  who  was 
the  poet  and  how  did  he  compose,  but  what  and  how  was  the 
poem,  and  why  was  it  a  poem  and  not  rhymed  eloquence, 
creation  and  not  figured  passion?    These  are  the  questions 


LITERARY  CRITICISM  363 

for  the  critic.  Criticism  stands  like  an  interpreter  between 
the  inspired  and  the  uninspired;  between  the  prophet  and 
those  who  hear  the  melody  of  his  words,  and  catch  some 
glimpse  of  their  material  meaning  but  understand  not  their 
deeper  import." 

I  am  afraid  that  no  German  critic  wholly  realized  this 
ideal ;  but  it  was  at  least  the  achievement  of  the  Germans  that 
they  enunciated  the  doctrine,  even  if  they  did  not  always 
adequately  illustrate  it  in  practice.  It  was  they  who  first 
realized  that  art  has  performed  its  function  when  it  has 
expressed  itself;  it  was  they  who  first  conceived  of  Criticism 
as  the  study  of  expression.  "There  is  a  destructive  and  a 
creative  or  constructive  criticism,"  said  Goethe;  the  first 
measures  and  tests  Literature  according  to  mechanical  stand- 
ards, the  second  answers  the  fundamental  questions:  "What 
has  the  writer  proposed  to  himself  to  do?  and  how  far  has  he 
succeeded  in  carrying  out  his  own  plan?"  Carlyle,  in  his 
essay  on  Goethe,  almost  uses  Goethe's  own  words,  when  he 
says  that  the  critic's  first  and  foremost  duty  is  to  make  plain 
to  himself  "what  the  poet's  aim  really  and  truly  was,  how  the 
task  he  had  to  do  stood  before  his  eye,  and  how  far,  with  such 
materials  as  were  afforded  him,  he  has  fulfilled  it."  This 
has  been  the  central  problem,  the  guiding  star,  of  all  modern 
criticism.  From  Coleridge  to  Pater,  from  Sainte-Beuve  to 
Lemaitre,  this  is  what  critics  have  been  striving  for,  even 
when  they  have  not  succeeded;  yes,  even  when  they  have 
been  deceiving  themselves  into  thinking  that  they  were  striv- 
ing for  something  else.  This  was  not  the  ideal  of  Aristotle 
when  he  tells  us  that  the  critic  may  censure  a  work  of  art  as 
"irrational,  impossible,  morally  hurtful,  self-contradictory, 
or  contrary  to  technical  correctness."  This  was  not  Boileau's 
standard  when  he  blamed  Tasso  for  the  introduction  of  Chris- 
tian rather  than  pagan  mythology  into  epic  poetry;  nor  Addi- 
son's, when  he  tested  "Paradise  Lost"  according  to  the  rules 
of  Le  Bossu ;  nor  Dr.  Johnson's,  when  he  laments  the  absence 


364  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

of  poetic  justice  in  "King  Lear,"  or  pronounces  dogmatically 
that  the  poet  should  not  "number  the  streaks  of  the  tulip." 
What  has  the  poet  tried  to  do,  and  how  has  he  fulfilled  his 
intention?  What  is  he  striving  to  express  and  how  has  he 
expressed  it?  What  impression  does  his  work  make  on  me, 
and  how  can  I  best  express  this  impression?  These  are  the 
questions  that  nineteenth-century  critics  have  been  taught 
to  ask  when  face  to  face  with  the  work  of  a  poet. 

The  theory  of  expression,  the  concept  of  Literature  as  an 
art  of  expression,  is  the  common  ground  on  which  critics  have 
met  for  a  century  or  more.  Yet  how  many  absurdities,  how 
many  complicated  systems,  how  many  confusions  have  been 
superimposed  on  this  fundamental  idea;  and  how  slowly 
has  its  full  significance  become  the  possession  of  critics! 
To  accept  the  naked  principle  is  to  play  havoc  with  these 
confusions  and  complications;  and  no  one  has  seen  this  more 
clearly,  or  driven  home  its  inevitable  consequences  with  more 
intelligence  and  vigor,  than  an  Italian  thinker  and  critic  of 
our  own  day,  Benedetto  Croce,  who  has  received  of  late  a 
kind  of  official  introduction  to  the  EngUsh-speaking  world  in 
the  striking  compliment  paid  to  him  by  Mr.  Balfour  in  his 
recent  Romanes  Lecture.  But  I  for  one  needed  no  introduc- 
tion to  his  work;  under  his  banner  I  enrolled  myself  long  ago, 
and  here  re-enroll  myself  in  what  I  now  say.  He  has  led 
aesthetic  thought  inevitably  from  the  concept  that  art  is 
expression  to  the  conclusion  that  all  expression  is  art.  Time 
does  not  permit,  nor  reason  ask,  that  we  should  follow  this 
argument  through  all  its  pros  and  cons.  If  this  theory  of 
expression  be  once  and  for  all  accepted,  as  indeed  it  has  been 
partly  though  confusedly  accepted  by  all  modern  critics, 
the  ground  of  Criticism  is  cleared  of  its  dead  lumber  and  its 
weeds.  I  propose  now  merely  to  point  out  this  dead  lumber 
and  these  weeds.  In  other  words,  we  shall  see  to  what  con- 
clusions the  critical  thought  and  practice  of  a  century  have 
been  inevitably  converging,  and  what  elements  of  the  old 


LITERARY   CRITICISM  365 

Criticism  and  the  old  literary  history  are  disappearing  from 
the  new. 

In  the  first  place,  we  have  done  with  all  the  old  Rules. 
The  very  conception  of  "rules"  harks  back  to  an  age  of  magic, 
and  reminds  the  modern  of  those  mysterious  words  which  the 
heroes  of  the  fairy-tales  are  without  reason  forbidden  to  utter; 
the  rules  are  a  survival  of  the  savage  taboo.  We  find  few 
arbitrary  rules  in  Aristotle,  who  limited  himself  to 
empirical  inductions  from  the  experience  of  Literature; 
but  they  appear  in  the  later  Greek  rhetoricians;  and 
in  the  Romans,  empirical  induction  has  been  hardened 
into  dogma.  Horace  lays  down  the  law  to  the  pro- 
spective playwright  in  this  manner:  "You  must  never  have 
more  than  three  actors  on  the  stage  at  any  one  time;  you 
must  never  let  your  drama  exceed  five  acts."  It  is  unneces- 
sary to  trace  the  history  of  these  rules,  or  to  indicate  how  they 
increased  in  number,  how  they  were  arranged  into  a  system 
by  the  classicists  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
and  how  they  burdened  the  creative  art  of  that  period.  They 
were  never  without  their  enemies.  We  have  seen  how  Aretino 
was  pitted  against  Scaliger,  Saint-Evremond  against  Boileau ; 
and  in  every  age  the  poets  have  astounded  the  critics  by  trans- 
gressing rules  without  the  sacrifice  of  beauty;  but  it  was  not 
until  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  that  the  Romanticists 
banished  them  from  the  province  of  Criticism.  The  pedantry 
of  our  own  day  has  borrowed  "conventions"  from  history  and 
"technique"  from  science  as  substitutes  for  the  outworn  for- 
mulae of  the  past;  but  these  are  merely  new  names  for  the 
old  mechanical  rules;  and  they  too  will  go,  when  criticism 
clearly  recognizes  in  every  work  of  art  an  organism  governed 
by  its  own  law. 

We  have  done  with  the  genres,  or  literary  kinds.  Their 
history  is  inseparably  bound  up  with  that  of  the  classical  rules. 
Certain  works  of  literature  have  a  general  resemblance  and  are 
loosely  classed  together  (for  the  sake  of  convenience)  as  lyric, 


366  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

comedy,  tragedy,  epic,  pastoral,  and  the  like;  the  classicists 
made  of  each  of  these  divisions  a  fixed  norm  governed  by  invio- 
lable laws.  The  separation  of  the  genres  was  a  consequence  of 
this  law  of  classicism:  comedy  should  not  be  mingled  with 
tragedy,  nor  epic  with  lyric.  But  no  sooner  was  the  law  enun- 
ciated than  it  was  broken  by  an  artist  impatient  or  ignorant 
of  its  restraints,  and  the  critics  have  been  obliged  to  explain 
away  these  violations  of  their  laws,  or  gradually  to  change  the 
laws  themselves.  But  if  art  is  organic  expression,  and  every 
work  of  art  is  to  be  interrogated  with  the  question,  "What  has 
it  expressed,  and  how  completely?"  there  is  no  place  for  the 
question  whether  it  has  conformed  to  some  convenient  classifi- 
cation of  critics  or  to  some  law  derived  from  this  classification. 
The  lyric,  the  pastoral,  the  epic,  are  abstractions  without  concrete 
reality  in  the  world  of  art.  Poets  do  not  write  epics,  pastorals, 
lyrics;  they  express  themselves,  and  this  expression  is  their 
only  form.  There  are  not,  therefore,  only  three,  or  ten,  or  a 
hundred  literary  kinds;  there  are  as  many  kinds  as  there  are 
individual  poets.  But  it  is  in  the  field  of  literary  history  that 
this  error  is  most  obvious.  Shakspere  wrote  "King  Lear," 
"Venus  and  Adonis,"  and  a  sequence  of  sonnets.  What 
becomes  of  Shakspere,  the  creative  artist,  when  these  three 
works  are  separated  from  one  another  by  the  historian  of 
poetry;  when  they  lose  their  connection  with  his  single  creative 
soul,  and  are  classified  with  other  works  with  which  they  have 
only  a  loose  and  vague  relation?  To  slice  up  the  history  of 
English  Literature  into  compartments  marked  comedy, 
tragedy,  lyric,  and  the  like,  is  to  be  guilty  of  a  complete  mis- 
understanding of  the  meaning  of  Criticism;  and  literary 
history  becomes  a  logical  absurdity  when  its  data  are  not  or- 
ganically related  but  cut  up  into  sections,  and  placed  in  such 
compartments  as  these. 

We  have  done  with  the  comic,  the  tragic,  the  sublime,  and 
an  army  of  vague  abstractions  of  their  kind.  These  have 
grown  out  of  the  generalizations  of  the  Alexandrian  critics, 


LITERARY  CRITICISM  367 

acquiring  a  new  lease  of  life  in  the  eighteenth  century.  Gray 
and  his  friend  West  corresponded  with  each  other  on  the 
subject  of  the  sublime;  later,  Schiller  distinguished  between 
the  naif  and  the  sentimental.  Jean  Paul  was  one  of  many  who 
defined  humor,  and  Hegel  among  those  who  defined  the  tragic. 
If  these  terms  represent  the  content  of  art,  they  may  be 
relegated  to  the  same  category  as  joy,  hate,  sorrow,  enthusiasm; 
and  we  should  speak  of  the  comic  in  the  same  general  way  in 
which  we  might  speak  of  the  expression  of  joy  in  a  poem.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  these  terms  represent  abstract  classifica- 
tions of  poetry,  their  use  in  criticism  sins  against  the  very 
nature  of  art.  Every  poet  re-expresses  the  universe  in  his  own 
way,  and  every  poem  is  a  new  and  independent  expression. 
The  tragic  does  not  exist  for  Criticism,  but  only  ^schylus, 
Shakspere,  Racine.  There  is  no  objection  to  the  use  of  the 
word  tragic  as  a  convenient  label  for  somewhat  similar  poems, 
but  to  find  laws  for  the  tragic  and  to  test  creative  artists  by 
such  laws  as  these  is  simply  to  give  a  more  abstract  form  to  the 
outworn  classical  conception  of  dramatic  rules. 

We  have  done  with  the  theory  of  style,  with  metaphor, 
simile,  and  all  the  paraphernalia  of  Graeco-Roman  rhetoric. 
These  owe  their  existence  to  the  assumption  that  style  is 
separated  from  expression,  that  it  is  something  which  may  be 
added  or  subtracted  at  will  from  the  work  of  art.  But  we 
know  that  art  is  expression,  that  it  is  complete  in  itself,  that  to 
alter  it  is  to  create  another  expression  and  therefore  to  create 
another  work  of  art.  If  the  poet,  for  example,  says  of  spring- 
time that  '"Tis  now  the  blood  runs  gold,"  he  has  not  em- 
ployed a  substitute  for  something  else,  such  as  "the  blood 
tingles  in  our  veins";  he  has  expressed  his  thought  in  its  com- 
pleteness, and  there  is  no  equivalent  for  his  expression  ex- 
cept itself. 

"Each  perfect  in  its  place;  and  each  content 
With  that  perfection  which  its  being  meant." 


368  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

Such  expressions  are  still  called  metaphors  in  the  text-books; 
but  metaphor,  simile,  and  all  the  old  terms  of  classical  rhetoric 
are  signs  of  the  zodiac,  magical  incantations,  astrological 
formulae,  interesting  only  to  antiquarian  curiosity.  To 
Montaigne  they  suggested  "the  prattle  of  chambermaids"; 
to  me  they  suggest  rather  the  drone  and  singsong  of  many 
school-mistresses.  We  still  hear  talk  of  the  "grand  style," 
and  essays  on  style  continue  to  be  written,  like  the  old  "arts 
of  poetry"  of  two  centuries  ago;  but  the  theory  of  styles  has 
no  longer  a  real  place  in  modem  thought;  we  have  learned  that 
it  is  no  less  impossible  to  study  style  as  separate  from  the  work 
of  art  than  to  study  the  comic  as  separate  from  the  work  of 
the  comic  artist. 

We  have  done  with  all  moral  judgment  of  Literature.  Horace 
said  that  pleasure  and  profit  are  the  end  of  art,  and  for  many 
centuries  the  critics  quarreled  over  the  terms  "pleasure" 
and  "profit."  Some  said  that  poetry  was  meant  to  instruct; 
some,  merely  to  please;  some,  to  do  both.  Romantic  criticism 
first  enunciated  the  principle  that  art  has  no  aim  except  ex- 
pression; that  its  aim  is  complete  when  expression  is  complete; 
that  "beauty  is  its  own  excuse  for  being."  If  the  achieve- 
ment of  the  poet  be  to  express  any  material  he  may  select, 
and  to  express  it  with  a  completeness  that  we  recognize  as 
perfection,  obviously  morals  can  play  no  part  in  the  judgment 
which  criticism  may  form  of  his  work.  No  critic  of  authority 
now  tests  Literature  by  the  standards  of  ethics. 

We  have  done  with  "dramatic"  criticism.  The  theory 
that  the  drama  is  not  a  creative  art,  but  a  by-product  of  the 
physical  exigencies  of  the  theater,  is  as  old  as  the  sixteenth 
century.  An  Italian  scholar  of  that  age  was  the  first  to 
maintain  that  plays  are  intended  to  be  acted  on  a  stage,  under 
certain  restricted  physical  conditions,  and  before  a  large  and 
heterogeneous  crowd;  dramatic  performance  has  developed 
out  of  these  conditions,  and  the  test  of  its  excellence  is  the 
pleasure  it  gives  to  the  mixed  audience  that  supports  it.     This 


LITERARY  CRITICISM  369 

idea  was  taken  hold  of  by  some  of  the  German  romanticists, 
for  the  pmpose  of  justifying  the  Shaksperean  drama  in  its 
apparent  divergence  from  the  classical  "rules."  Shakspere 
cannot  be  judged  by  the  rules  of  the  Greek  theater  (so  ran 
their  argument),  for  the  drama  is  an  inevitable  product  of  the- 
atrical conditions;  these  conditions  in  Elizabethan  England 
were  not  the  same  as  those  of  Periclean  Athens;  and  it  is 
therefore  absurd  to  judge  Shakspere's  practice  by  that  of 
Sophocles.  Here  at  least  the  idea  helped  to  bring  Shakspere 
home  to  many  new  hearts  by  ridding  the  age  of  mistaken 
prejudices,  and  served  a  useful  purpose,  as  a  specious  argu- 
ment may  persuade  men  to  contribute  to  a  noble  work,  or  a 
mad  fanatic  may  rid  the  world  of  a  tyrant.  But  with  this 
achievement  its  usefulness  but  not  its  life  was  ended.  It  has 
been  developed  into  a  system,  and  become  a  dogma  of  dra- 
matic critics;  it  is  our  contemporary  equivalent  for  the  "rules" 
of  seventeenth-century  pedantry.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
dramatic  artist  is  to  be  judged  by  no  other  standard  than  that 
applied  to  any  other  creative  artist:  what  has  he  tried  to 
express,  and  how  has  he  expressed  it?  It  is  true  that  the 
theater  is  not  only  an  art  but  a  business,  and  the  so-called 
"success"  of  a  play  is  of  vital  interest  to  the  theater  in  so  far 
as  it  is  a  commercial  undertaking.  The  test  of  "success"  is  an 
economic  test,  and  concerns  not  art  or  the  criticism  of  art,  but 
political  economy.  Valuable  contributions  to  economic  and 
social  history  have  been  made  by  students  who  have  investi- 
gated the  changing  conditions  of  the  theater  and  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  taste  on  the  part  of  theatrical  audiences;  but  these 
have  the  same  relation  to  criticism,  and  to  the  drama  as  an 
art,  that  a  history  of  the  publisher's  trade  and  its  influence 
on  the  personal  fortunes  of  poets  would  bear  to  the  history  of 
poetry. 

We  have  done  with  technique  as  separate  from  art.  It  has 
been  pointed  out  that  style  cannot  be  disassociated  from  art; 
and  the  false  air  of  science  which  the  term  "technique"  seems 

2b 


370  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

to  possess  should  not  blind  us  to  the  fact  that  it  too  involves 
the  same  error,  "Technique  is  really  personality;  that  is  the 
reason  why  the  artist  cannot  teach  it,  why  the  pupil  cannot 
learn  it  and  why  the  aesthetic  critic  can  understand  it," 
says  Oscar  Wilde,  in  a  dialogue  on  "The  Critic  as  Artist,  "which, 
amid  much  perversity  and  paradox,  is  illumined  by  many 
flashes  of  strange  insight.  The  technique  of  poetry  cannot 
be  separated  from  its  inner  nature.  Versification  cannot  be 
studied  by  itself,  except  loosely  and  for  convenience;  it  re- 
mains always  an  inherent  quality  of  the  single  poem.  Milton's 
line  — 

"These  my  sky-robes  spun  out  of  Iris'  woof  " 

is  called  an  iambic  pentameter;  but  it  is  not  true  that  artisti- 
cally it  has  something  in  conunon  with  every  other  line  pos- 
sessing the  same  succession  of  syllables  and  accents;  in  this 
sense  it  is  not  an  iambic  pentameter;  it  is  only  one  thing;  it  is 
the  line :  — 

"  These  my  sky-robes  spun  out  of  Iris'  woof." 

We  have  done  with  the  history  and  criticism  of  poetic 
themes.  It  is  possible  to  speak  loosely  of  the  handling  of 
such  a  theme  as  Prometheus  by  ^Eschylus  and  by  Shelley,  of 
the  story  of  Francesca  da  Rimini,  by  Dante,  Stephen  Phillips, 
and  D'Annunzio;  but  strictly  speaking,  they  are  not  employ- 
ing the  same  theme  at  all.  Each  artist  is  expressing  a  certain 
material  and  labeling  it  with  an  historic  name.  For  Shelley 
Prometheus  is  only  a  label;  he  is  expressing  his  artistic  con- 
ception of  life,  not  the  history  of  a  Greek  Titan;  it  is  the  vital 
flame  he  has  breathed  into  his  work  that  makes  it  what  it  is, 
and  with  this  vital  flame  (and  not  with  labels)  the  critic 
should  concern  himself  in  the  works  of  poets. 

We  have  done  with  the  race,  the  time,  the  environment  of 
a  poet's  work  as  an  element  in  criticism.  To  study  these 
phases  of  a  work  of  art  is  to  treat  it  as  an  historic  or  social 


LITERARY  CRITICISM  371 

document,  and  the  result  is  a  contribution  to  the  history  of 
culture  or  civilization,  without  interest  for  the  history  of 
art.  "Granted  the  times,  the  environment,  the  race,  the 
passions  of  the  poet,  what  has  he  done  with  his  materials,  how 
has  he  converted  poetry  out  of  reality?"  To  answer  this 
question  of  the  Italian  De  Sanctis  as  it  refers  to  each  single 
work  of  art  is  to  perform  what  is  truly  the  critic's  vital  func- 
tion; this  is  to  interpret  "expression"  in  its  rightful  sense, 
and  to  liberate  aesthetic  Criticism  from  the  vassalage  to 
Kulturgeschichte  imposed  on  it  by  the  school  of  Taine. 

We  have  done  with  the  "evolution"  of  Literature.  The 
concept  of  progress  was  first  applied  to  Literature  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  but  at  the  very  outset  Pascal  pointed 
out  that  a  distinction  must  here  be  made  between  science 
and  art;  that  science  advances  by  accumulation  of  knowl- 
edge, while  the  changes  of  art  cannot  be  reduced  to  any 
theory  of  progress.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  theory  involves 
the  ranking  of  poets  according  to  some  arbitrary  conception 
of  their  value;  and  the  ranking  of  writers  in  order  of  merit 
has  become  obsolete,  except  in  the  "hundred  best  books" 
of  the  last  decade  and  the  "five-foot  shelves"  of  to-day. 
The  later  nineteenth  century  gave  a  new  air  of  verisimilitude 
to  this  old  theory  by  borrowing  the  term  "evolution"  from 
science;  but  this  too  involves  a  fundamental  misconception 
of  the  free  and  original  movement  of  art.  A  similar  miscon- 
ception is  involved  in  the  study  of  the  "origins"  of  art;  for 
art  has  no  origin  separate  from  man's  life. 

"In  climes  beyond  the  solar  road, 
Where  shaggy  forms  o'er  ice-built  mountains  roam, 
The  Muse  has  broke  the  twilight-gloom  " ; 

but  though  she  wore  savage  raiment,  she  was  no  less  the 
Muse.  Art  is  simple  at  times,  complex  at  others,  but  it  is 
always  art.    The  simple  art  of  early  times  may  be  studied 


372  ;literary  criticism 

with  profit;  but  the  researches  of  anthropology  have  no 
vital  significance  for  criticism,  unless  the  anthropologist 
studies  the  simplest  forms  of  art  in  the  same  spirit  as  its  highest; 
that  is,  unless  the  anthropologist  is  an  aesthetic  critic. 

Finally,  we  have  done  with  the  old  rupture  between  genius 
and  taste.  When  Criticism  first  propounded  as  its  real  con- 
cern the  oft-repeated  question:  "What  has  the  poet  tried  to 
express  and  how  has  he  expressed  it?"  Criticism  prescribed 
for  itself  the  only  possible  method.  How  can  the  critic  an- 
swer this  question  without  becoming  (if  only  for  a  moment  of 
supreme  power)  at  one  with  the  creator?  That  is  to  say, 
taste  must  reproduce  the  work  of  art  within  itself  in  order  to 
understand  and  judge  it;  and  at  that  moment  aesthetic  judg- 
ment becomes  nothing  more  nor  less  than  creative  art  itself. 
The  identity  of  genius  and  taste  is  the  final  achievement  of 
modern  thought  on  the  subject  of  art,  and  it  means  that 
fundamentally  the  creative  and  the  critical  instincts  are  one 
and  the  same.  From  Goethe  to  Carlyle,  from  Carlyle  to 
Arnold,  from  Arnold  to  Wilde,  there  has  been  much  talk  of 
the  "creative  function"  of  Criticism.  For  each  of  these  men 
the  phrase  held  a  different  content;  for  Arnold  it  meant 
merely  that  Criticism  creates  the  intellectual  atmosphere  of 
the  age,  —  a  social  function  of  high  importance,  perhaps,  yet 
wholly  independent  of  aesthetic  significance.  But  the  ulti- 
mate truth  toward  which  these  men  were  tending  was  more 
radical  than  that,  and  plays  havoc  with  all  the  old  platitudes 
about  the  sterility  of  taste.  Criticism  at  last  can  free  itself 
of  its  age-long  self-contempt,  now  that  it  may  realize  that 
aesthetic  judgment  and  artistic  creation  are  instinct  with 
the  same  vital  life.  Without  this  identity.  Criticism  would 
really  be  impossible.  "Genius  is  to  aesthetics  what  the  ego 
is  to  philosophy,  the  only  supreme  and  absolute  reality,"  said 
Schelling;  and  without  subduing  the  mind  to  this  transcen- 
dental system,  it  remains  true  that  what  must  always  be 
inexplicable  to  mere  reflection  is  just  what  gives  power  to 


LITERARY  CRITICISM  373 

poetry;  that  intellectual  curiosity  may  amuse  itself  by  asking 
its  little  questions  of  the  silent  sons  of  light,  but  they  vouch- 
safe no  answer  to  art's  pale  shadow,  thought;  the  gods  are 
kind  if  they  give  up  their  secret  in  another  work  of  art,  the 
art  of  Criticism,  that  serves  as  some  sort  of  mirror  to  the  art 
of  Literature,  only  because  in  their  flashes  of  insight  taste  and 
genius  are  one. 


INDEX 


Abbasides,  Development  of  poetry 
under  the,  33. 

"Abbey  of  Theleme,"  Quotation 
from,  168. 

"  Absolom  and  Aehitophel,"  Dryden's 
genius  noble  in,  193. 

Abu  Said,  Quatrain  from,  64. 

"Accademia  della  Crusca,"  criticized, 
227. 

Acts  of  the  Martyrs,  36. 

Adab,  the  polite  literature  of  the 
Arabs,  39. 

Addai,  Romance  of,  36. 

Addison,  on  the  ballad  of  "Percy 
and  Douglas,"  181-182;  Latin 
charm  in,  194;  papers  on  "Para- 
dise Lost,"  197-198 ;  compared 
with  Pope,  198. 

Addison  and  Steele,  Sir  Roger  de 
Coverley  of,  15. 

-lEneid,  The  Roman  people  the  real 
hero  of  the,  118-119;  appeals  to 
the  universal  heart  of  man,  129 ; 
ballad  of  "Percy  and  Douglas" 
compared  with  the,  by  Addison, 
181-182. 

iEschylus,  The  tragedies  of,  5 ;  only 
seven  preserved,  95 ;  transformed 
the  drama,  109. 

^sop.  Source  of  the  Fables  of,  51 ; 
Gallicized  in  La  Fontaine,  190. 

Age  of  Chivalry,  The,  136. 

"Age  of  Pericles,"  Engraving  en- 
titled, 91. 

Agni,  the  god  of  fire,  44. 

Ahura  Mazdah,  the  theme  of  Zoroas- 
ter's psalms,  58-59. 

Aix-la-Chapelle,  Effects  of  Treaty 
of,  upon  Italy,  222,  224. 

Al-Ahtal,  Christian  poet,  33. 

al-Hamadani,  The  rhymed  prose  in 
the  Makamahs  of,  35. 

al-Hariri,  The  rhymed  prose  in  the 
Makamahs  of,  35. 


al-Harizi,  the  Hebrew  Makamahs  of, 
35. 

Al-Hirah,  Persian  influences  at  petty 
court  at,  33. 

al-Khansa,  female  poet,  33. 

al-Ma'mum,  Court  poets  of,  33. 

al-Mutanabbi  developed  the  Kasidah, 
33-34. 

al-Tabari,  the  annalist,  39. 

Alexander  the  Great,  in  Hebrew, 
Arabic,  and  Syriac  folk-tales,  27 ; 
brought  back  many  elements  of 
culture,  40  ;  prevailing  conditions 
to  time  of,  95 ;  empire  of,  short- 
lived, 115. 

Alexander  II,  influenced  by  Tur- 
genieff  to  emancipate  the  serfs, 
325. 

Alexandrianism,  dessicated  Hellen- 
ism, 12,  13;   at  Rome,  119. 

Alexandrine,  Use  of  the,  by  the 
Pleiade,  183. 

Alfieri,  Vittorio,  Patriotic  idealism 
in,  200  ;  the  passionate  tragedies  of, 
231. 

Alfred,  Court  of,  137. 

Algarotti,  Francesco,  Venetian  critic, 
226. 

Allegory,  Persistence  of,  in  Medieval 
Literature,  140-141. 

Allen,  C.  F.  R.,  translator  of  the 
Shi-king,  77. 

Alliteration  and  assonance  lost  in 
translation,  35. 

Alphabet,  We  owe  the,  to  the 
Semites,  21-22. 

American  Literature,  Romanticism 
in,  206 ;  separation  of,  from  Eng- 
lish, 269-270. 

Angles  and  Saxons,  The  literature  of 
the,  253. 

Animal  fables  of  the  Sanskrit,  51. 

Annamites,  The,  study  Chinese 
Literature,  67. 


375 


376 


INDEX 


Antar,  The  romances  of,  39. 

Antara,  Epic  of  the  black  hero,  28. 

Antiphon,  earliest  Attic  orator,  112. 

Antonius,  a  teacher  of  Cicero,  124. 

Apocryphal  writings  originally  in 
Hebrew,  36. 

Appius  Claudius  Caecus  made  first 
speech  published  in  Roman  annals, 
124. 

Appreciation  of  authors,  A  reasoned, 
16. 

Approaches  to  Literature  (B.  Mat- 
thews), 1-20. 

"Arabian  Nights,  The,"  not  a  pic- 
ture of  Arab  life,  39-40. 

Arabic,  The,  drove  out  other  tongues, 
31. 

Arabic  belles-lettres  under  influence  of 
writers  of  Western  Europe,  24. 

Arabic  historiography.  Birth  of,  38. 

Arabic  poetry.  Influence  of,  on 
Hebrew  poetry,  29-30 ;  collec- 
tions of,  34. 

Arabic  prose  first  put  to  writing  in 
the  Koran,  38. 

Arabs,  Passion  of,  for  poetic  diction, 
22,31-32;  compelled  submission 
of  other  races,  23,  30-31 ;  devel- 
oped a  rich  Literature,  31  ;  poetry 
of  the,  32-34  ;  rhymed  prose,  34-35. 

Aramaic  language  and  Literature,  36. 
.  Arcadian  Academy,  Purpose  of  the, 
200 ;  influence  of,  on  Italian 
Literature,  222-223. 

Archaeology,  Chinese  works  on,  86 ; 
effect  of  progress  in,   97. 

Archilochus  a  master  of  satire  and 
versification,  108,  109. 

"Ardashir,  Romance  of  King,"  59- 
60. 

Ariosto,  founder  of  classic  tradition  in 
Italian  poetry,  171;  the  "Orlando 
Furioso "  of,  continued  by  Lope 
de  Vega,  247. 

Aristocracy,  Earliest  stage  of  Greek 
life  an,  105. 

Aristophanes,  The  lyrical-burlesque 
of,  14;  genius  of,  102  ;  satirist,  109  ; 
comedies  of,  125  ;  model  for  Racine, 
187. 

Aristotle,  Joy  in  a  lasting  friendship 
with,  10 ;    imbibed  wisdom  at  feet 


of  the  Rabbis,  24  ;  translated  into 
Syriac,  37  ;  the  "  Organon  "  of,  37  ; 
valuable  fragment  of,  96 ;  on  the 
critic,  363  ;  few  arbitrary  rules  in, 
365. 

Arjuna,  the  Achilles  of  the  Maha- 
bharata,  49. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  The  "Sohrab  and 
Rustum"  of,  60-61 ;  a  natural 
evolution  from  the  discipline  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  202 ;  defi- 
nition of  classic,  206 ;  on  the 
essential  of  Literature,  262 ;  de- 
sertion of  the  mu.se  by,  264. 

"Ars  Poetica"  of  Horace,  Boileau's 
imitation  of,  the  creed  of  the  classi- 
cal age,  189. 

Art  and  Science  colleagues,  1. 

Art,  Code  of  rules  for  every,  13 ; 
Chinese  works  on,  86 ;  sensuous 
charm  of  Italian,  169  ;  transforma- 
tion of  criticism  and  history  of, 
214;  what  English  Literature  has 
lacked  in,  258-259  ;  is  organic  ex- 
pression, 366 ;  simple,  may  be 
studied  with  profit,  371-372. 

Art  for  Art's  sake,  the  battle-cry  of 
French  Romanticists,  13-14 ;  Ro- 
manticism gone  to  seed,  218 ; 
Pushkin  idol  of  the  partizans  of, 
323. 

"Art  of  Love,"  Ovid's,  construed  as 
an  allegory  of  love  divine,   157. 

Arts,  Free  trade  in  the  raw  materials 
of  the,  1 1 ;   a  new  birth  for  the,  12. 

Ascham,  Roger,  on  the  "Morte  d' 
Arthur,"  141  ;  on  Renaissance 
Italy,  169. 

Assonance  and  rhyme,  Delight  of  the 
Arab  in,  35  ;  use  of,  formulated  by 
the  Pleiade,  183. 

Atharva  collection,  the  fourth  of  the 
Vedas,  45. 

Athenian  tragedy,  Evolution  of,  14. 

Athenians,  The,  produced  the  drama, 
102-103. 

Athens,  4 ;  total  population  of,  107 ; 
influence  of  political  conditions  in, 
on  oratory,  110-112. 

Attar,  Farid  ad  Din,  Persian  mystic 
poet,  61-62;  extract  from  "Bird- 
Parliament"  of,  62. 


INDEX 


377 


Attic  drama,  Persistence  of  literary 
dialect  illustrated  in  the,  102-103. 

Attic  eclipsed  Ionic  prose,  101  ; 
ascendancy  of,  112-114. 

Auerbach  reveals  the  rustics  of  the 
Black  Forest,  5. 

Augier  indebted  to  Balzac,  16. 

Auguration  among  the  Chinese,  74- 
75. 

Augustus,  Efforts  of,  for  reconstruc- 
tion of  Italy,  129. 

"Autos  sacramentales "  of  Calderon, 
248. 

Avesta,  The  Yashts  of  the,  59. 

Avicenna,  see  Ibn  Sina. 

Babrius,  Source  of  the  Fables  of,  51. 

Babylonian  Literature,  Oldest  speci- 
men of,  23. 

Babylonian  religion  sublimated  its 
mythological  elements,  25. 

Babylonians,  Beginnings  of  the  cul- 
ture of  the,  21  ;  imposed  their 
script  and  religion  upon  those  they 
conquered,  23 ;  many  ideas  of 
Greek  philosophy  came  from  the, 
40. 

Bacchylides,  Ms.  of,  95,  96 ;  em- 
ployed Doric  dialect,  100 ;  wrote 
odes,  109. 

Bacon,  Havelock  Ellis  on  Shakspere 
and,  7;   on  Vergil,  117. 

Balbilla  composed  poems  in  imita- 
tion of  Sappho,  100. 

Balbus,  from  Cadiz,  gained  a  public 
triumph  at  Rome,  234. 

Ballad  Literature,  Tragedy  in,  144 ; 
rhythm  in,  145 ;  in  Spain,  239- 
240. 

Balzac,  The  sorry  heroes  of,  a  pat- 
tern, 14  ;  Dumas  fils  and  Augier 
indebted  to,  16;  "The  Human 
Comedy"  of,  289. 

"Bamboo  Book"  annals.  The,  83-84. 

Banu  Hilal,  The  romances  of  the,  39. 

Baretti,  Guiseppe,  found  inspiration 
in  England,  200 ;  literary  critic, 
227. 

Barrie,  J.  M.,  Humor  of,  akin  to 
Chaucer's,  146. 

Basques,  The,  234 ;  defeated  Roland, 
239. 


Bazan,  Countess  Pardo,  on  contem- 
porary Spanish  Literature,  249— 
250. 

Beast  fable.  The,  of  India,  51. 

Beatrice,  Love  of  Dante  for,  140. 

Beaumarchais,  The  Figaro  of,  12,  287. 

Beers,  H.  A.,  on  romanticism,  136, 
204. 

Belles-lettres,  The  Treasury  of,  of 
Chinese  Literature,  71,  88-89. 

Benoit  de  Ste.  More,  French  roman- 
cer, 136. 

Beowiilf,  Germanic  paganism  in, 
135,  253. 

Beranger  on  the  white  flag  of  the 
Bourbons,  277. 

Berbers,  The,  submitted  to  religious 
enthusiasm  of  the  Arabs,  23. 

Bernardo  del  Carpio,  Spanish  hero  in 
Ballad  Literature,  239-240. 

Bertola,  Aurelio,  poet,  230. 

Bettinelli,  Saverio,  Itahan  critic,  226. 

Bhartrihari,  Specimens  of  the  lyrics 
of,  55-56. 

Bhavabhuti,  a  dramatist  of  India,  54. 

Bible,  Traditional  narratives  from 
GUgamesh  in  the,  26-27 ;  noble 
language  of  the,  29,  30,  35;  the 
Book  of  the  Jewish  Church,  35  ;  in- 
fluence of,  and  of  its  translations, 
40-41;  debt  of  Milton  to,  124; 
source  of  modern  Literature,  213 ; 
the  greatest  monument  of  our 
prose,  262. 

"Bidpah  or  Pilpay,"  52. 

"Bird-Parliament"  of  Attar,  Ex- 
tract from  FitzGerald's  version  of 
the.  62. 

Blake,  William,  on  knowledge,  2 ; 
a  revolutionary  writer,   177. 

Blanc,  Louis,  as  a  writer,  288. 

Boccaccio,  The  mother  of,  probably 
a  French  woman,  7 ;  began  lec- 
tures on  Dante,  18 ;  the  source  of 
the  "Knight's  Tale,"  137;  on, 
composition  in  the  vulgar  tongue, 
161. 

Bodner,  translator  of  "Paradise 
Lost,"  201. 

Boethius,  Language  of,  131-132; 
classic  thought  in,  135 ;  allegory 
in,  141. 


378 


INDEX 


Bohemia,  Czech  aspirations  for  Liter- 
ature in,  339. 

Boileau,  satirist  and  critic,  172,  188- 
189 ;  the  absolute  model  for  criti- 
cism, 189  ;  on  Tasso,  363. 

Boissier,  Gaston,  The  "End  of 
Paganism  "  of,  and  Walter  Pater's 
"Plato  and  Platonism,"  8;  dis- 
covered struggle  for  life  theory  in 
St.  Augustine's  "City  of  God,"  19. 

"Book  of  Changes,"  see  "Canon  of 
Changes." 

Bossuet,  Influence  of  Demosthenes 
and  Cicero  on,  14. 

Bossuet  and  Voltaire,  283. 

Boy,  The,  the  stone,  and  the  dog,  a 
quatrain,  56. 

Brahman,  The,  and  his  bowl  of  rice, 
52. 

Brahmanas,  works  explanatory  of  the 
Vedas,  47-48 ;  earliest  prose  writ- 
ings, 48. 

Brandes  on  Romanticism,  204. 

Briton,  The,  proud  to  call  himself  a 
Roman,  115-116. 

Broceliande,  Enchanted  forest  of, 
138. 

Browning,  Quotation  from  "Gram- 
marian" of,  159;  from  "Rabbi 
Ben  Ezra,"  209;  the  "Caliban" 
of,  210;  intense  interest  in  man, 
213;  a  Romanticist,  218;  per- 
sisting in  eccentricity,  264. 

Brunetifere,  Ferdinand,  followed  Les- 
sing,  18 ;  most  suggestive  of 
recent  critics,  19 ;  on  French 
Literature,  134  ;  on  Romanticism, 
204 ;  on  the  leading  literatures, 
291-292 ;  on  the  French  vogue  for 
Russian  Literature,  311. 

"Buch  der  Byspel  der  alten  Weisen, 
Das,"  52. 

Buchanan,  George,  Lines  to  France, 
8. 

Bucolic  or  pastoral  poetry  of  Theoc- 
ritus, 98. 

Buddha,  Accounts  of  the  incarna- 
tions of,  in  the  Jatakas,  51. 

Buddhism,  Chinese  works  on,  87. 

Buffon  worked  in  richest  garb,  3. 

Buffon's   "Natural    History,"  287. 

Bunyan,  Allegory  in,  141. 


Burlesques,  flourish  in  classical  age, 

188  ;   in  Italy,  223. 
Burns,  a  revolutionary  writer,  177. 
Byron,  and  the  French  Romanticists, 

216 ;    balance  of  waste  and  profit 

in,  264-265 ;    vogue  of,  in  France, 

342. 
Byron's     "Manfred,"     210;      "Don 

Juan,"  265. 
Byzantium,  Literature  of,  94. 

Caedmon  characterized,  150. 

Caesar's  "Commentaries"  a  monu- 
ment of  the  native  capacity  of  the 
Latin  language,  123  ;   style  in,  126. 

"Caff 6,  11"  of  Verri,  periodical,  226. 

Calderon,  Spanish  dramatist,  247— 
248. 

Calvin,  the  reaction  against  Renais- 
sance license,  170,  174. 

Calvus,  member  of  a  school  already 
Alexandrine,  119. 

Campion,  Plea  of,  for  classical  verse, 
183. 

"Canon  of  Changes"  {I -king).  The, 
a  work  on  the  eight  mystic  dia- 
grams, 73-75 ;  the  Fong-shui  of  the, 
75  ;  a  rationalism  based  on  the,  85. 

"  Canon  of  History"  {Shu-king),  The, 
75-76. 

"Canon  of  Odes"  (Shi-king),  The, 
76-77. 

"  Canon  of  Rites"  (Li-king),  The,  77. 

Canterbury  Pilgrimage,  The,  illus- 
trates the  importance  of  the 
Church,   147. 

Canto,  terzett,  and  hexameter,  in 
Hebrew  poetry,  30. 

Carasalla's  extension  of  Roman  citi- 
zenship, 115. 

Carducci,  a  Romanticist,  218. 

Carlyle,  on  Shakspere,  173-174;  dis- 
daining discipline,  264  ;  on  the  new 
German  criticism,  362-363. 

Carthaginians,  Incursions  of,  into 
Spain,  234. 

Catherine  II,  of  Russia,  315 ;  an 
Encyclopedist,  329. 

Catholicism,  Action  of  Council  of 
Trent  on,  170. 

Cato,  the  elder,  a  teacher  of  Cicero, 
124;  the  "Origins"  of,  126. 


INDEX 


379 


"Catone,"  The,  of  Metastasio,  223. 

Catullus,  of  a  school  already  Alex- 
andrine, 119;  the  poetry  of,  119- 
120. 

Caxton,  on  chivalry,  142 ;  on  the 
humanities,  162. 

Celtic  cycle.  Tales  of  the,  kxiown  in 
Spain,  240. 

Celts,  The,  234. 

Centralization  in  Art  and  Literature, 
171. 

Cervantes,  a  master  of  prose  fiction, 
15 ;  began  as  a  playwright,  15 ; 
life  and  writings  of,  241-246 ; 
career  of,  242 ;  a  representative 
citizen  of  the  world,  247. 

Cesarotti,  Melchiorre,  literary  critic, 
227-228. 

Chang  K'ien,  the  discoverer  of  India 
for  the  Chinese,  69-70  ;  the  Colum- 
bus of  the  Chinese,  82. 

Chansons  de  geste  known  in  Spain, 
238,  240. 

Chant,  A,  the  first  melody  of  India's 
voice,  44. 

Character,  Education  of,  the  great 
lesson  of  Mencius,  80. 

Characters,  literary,  Wanderings  of 
cosmopolitan,  10-12. 

"  Characters  "  of  La  Bruyfere,  285. 

Charlemagne  in  the  Spanish  ballads, 
239-240. 

Chateaubriand's  "Genius  of  Chris- 
tianity," 214;  political,  287; 
"Buonaparte  and  the  Bourbons," 
287-288. 

Chaucer,  Thoreau  on,  19 ;  quoted, 
137 ;  influenced  by  lore-allegory, 
140 ;  lack  of  tragedy  in,  144 ; 
humor  in,  146  ;   Dryden  on,  193. 

Chaucer  and  Langland,  253-254. 

Chenier,  Andre,  in  France,  214,  216. 

Chiari,  Pietro,  Romances  of,  228. 

"Child  Waters,"  Quotation  from, 
143. 

Chinese,  No  one  knows  where  the, 
came  from,  68 ;  Indian  folk-lore 
and  the,  69. 

Chinese  biographies,  83. 

"Chinese  Classics,"  The,  not  influ- 
enced from  any  quarter,  70 ;  the 
works  of  thinkers,  70 ;    books  in- 


cluded in  the,  73 ;  glossaries  and 
dictionaries  on,  80-81. 

Chinese  dictionaries,  81. 

Chinese  historians,  One-sidedness  of, 
69. 

Chinese  imperial  libraries.  Cata- 
logues of,  70-72. 

Chinese  Literature  (Friedrich 
Hirth)  67-90  :  The  classic  Litera- 
ture of  the  Far  East,  67 ;  Con- 
fucianist,  67 ;  absolutely  autoch- 
thonous, 68 ;  developed  with  the 
nation,  68  ;  similarities  with  Indian 
folk-lore  in  fourth  century,  69 ; 
the  Chinese  Classics,  70,  73 ;  no 
history  of,  70 ;  catalogues  of,  70- 
71;  the  "Four  Treasuries,"  71; 
the  " Five  Canons "  :  The  "Canon 
of  Changes,"  73-75;  the  "Canon 
of  History,"  75-76,  81-83;  the 
"Canon  of  Odes,"  76-77;  the 
" Canon  of  Rites,"  77  ;  the  "Spring 
and  Autumn,"  77-78;  the  "Four 
Books,"  78-79  ;  commentaries  and 
expositions,  80-81  ;  the  twenty- 
four  Histories,  82-83  ;  the  historic 
annals,  83-84 ;  gazetteers,  84 ; 
Treasury  of  the  Philosophers,  84- 
85;  the  cyclopedias,  86-87;  Bud- 
dhism and  Tauism,  87-88  ;  Belles- 
Lettres,  88;  "Elegies  of  Ch'u," 
88-89 ;  poetry,  drama,  and  novels, 
89-90. 

Chivalry,  Influence  of,  on  social  ethics, 
138-140;  immoral,  139;  virtues 
of,  142  ;   in  Spain,  240-241. 

Ch'on  Chon-sun,  The  private  collec- 
tion of,  71. 

Choral  IjtIc  poetry,  Dorian,  101-102. 

Chretien  de  Troyes,  French  ro- 
mancer, 135,  136 ;  quoted,  143- 
144;    claimed  his  own  work,   151. 

Christ,  Romance  of  the,  36. 

Christianity,  Origin  of,  21  ;  gift  of 
the  Jews,  23  ;  gospel  of,  preached 
in  Greek,  94 ;  the  world  a  place  of 
horror  to  medieval,  163-164  ;  the 
doctrine  of  good  cheer  enlivened, 
166 ;  introduction  of,  into  Spain, 
235. 

Chu  Hi,  defender  of  Confucianism, 
S5. 


380 


INDEX 


Ch'un-tsHu,  "Spring  and  Autumn," 
77-78,  81. 

Church,  The  medieval,  in  twelfth 
and  thirteenth  centuries,  134 ; 
passion  for  system  in,  140 ;  influ- 
ence of  on  Literature,  147-150 ; 
discouraged  individuality,  151. 

Church  Fathers,  The,  on  the  ancient 
gods,  95 ;  the  Latinity  of,  made 
possible  by  Cicero,  124. 

Cicero,  restores  the  ruins  of  Rome,  4  ; 
influence  of,  on  Bossuet  and  Web- 
ster, 14  ;  had  the  most  cultivated 
mind  of  aU  antiquity,  117;  justi- 
fied his  interest  in  Philosophy,  121- 
122 ;  created  a  philosophical  vo- 
cabulary, 123  ;  made  possible  the 
Latinity  of  the  Church  Fathers, 
124  ;  influence  of,  in  Roman  educa- 
tion, 124  ;  a  literary  artist,  124  ; 
founder  of  Latin  prose  style,  125; 
as  an  orator,  125-126  ;  Letters  of, 
126 ;    compared  with  Sallust,   127. 

Cid,  the.  Story  of,  236-238;  origin 
and  form  of,  238-239. 

Cinna,  member  of  a  school  already 
Alexandrine,  119. 

Ciriac  of  Ancona,  antiquary,  160. 

Citizenship,  Roman,  Extension  of, 
115. 

Civ-ilization,  Western,  Debt  of,  to 
the  nearer  East,  21. 

Classic,  Definition  of  a,  179,  206-207. 

Classic  art  the  highest,  210. 

Classic  contrasted  with  Romantic, 
203,  205-211. 

Classic  revival  a  part  of  the  Romantic 
movement,  214. 

Classical  Rule,  The  (John  Erskine) 
177-202:  "Classical"  defined, 
177-180  ;  conflict  between  national 
folk  literatures  and  the  classical 
ideal,  180-182  ;  imitation  of  classics 
through  external  form  or  through 
spirit,  182-184 ;  strongest  in 
France,  184-191  ;  in  England,  191- 
199;  in  Italy,  200;  in  Germany, 
200-201 ;   influence  of,  201-202. 

Classicism,  empty  and  formal,  13 ; 
the  accompUshment  of,  191 ;  the 
course  of,  211 ;  and  Romanticism, 
262. 


Classicist  canon,  The,  formulated  in 
mid-sixteenth  century,  171-172; 
to  follow  nature  a  chief,  212- 
213. 

Classics,  The,  defined,  178-180; 
influence  of,  on  European  Litera- 
ture, 180 ;  delight  in  the,  194  ;  a 
genuine  revival  for,  214 ;  decline 
of  the  ancient,  353. 

Classics  (king).  The,  71. 

Classics  of  to-day,  the  Romanticists 
who  have  arrived,  207. 

"Clay  Cart,  The,"  a  drama  by  King 
S'udraka,  54. 

Clay  tablets  of  Babylonia,  The,  28. 

' '  Cloud  Messenger,  The, "  of  Kalidasa, 
55. 

CoHN,  Adolphe,  French  Literature, 
27.3-289. 

Coleridge,  and  the  supernatural,  215  ; 
found  Dr.  Johnson  lacked  morality, 
262. 

Colonization,  Greek,  107. 

Columella,  a  Spaniard,  234. 

Comedy,  Greek,  The  intriguing 
slave  of,  revived  in  other  litera- 
tures, 11-12. 

Comedy,  Moli^re  and,  10 ;  in  popu- 
lar Medieval  Literature,   146-147. 

Comedy  of  cloak-and-sword.  The 
Spanish,  11. 

Comedy-of-masks,  The  Italian,  11. 

"Comendador  Mendoza,  El,"  of 
Valera,  249. 

Common  law,  Roman,  Influence  of 
Stoic  doctrine  on  the,  115. 

Comte  on  humanity,  7. 

Concordance  published  by  the  Em- 
peror K'ang-hi,  81. 

Confessions  of  Rousseau,  140. 

Confucian  analects,  The,  78 ;  filial 
piety  the  keynote  of  the,  78-79. 

Confucianist  Literature  includes  anti- 
Confucianist,  67-68;  the  "Canon 
of  History  "  purely,  76. 

Confucius,  and  his  influence,  72-73  ; 
book  written  to  prove  he  never 
lived,  76 ;  no  teachings  of,  in  the 
"Five  Canons,"  but  in  the  "Four 
Books,"  78;  teachings  of,  78-79; 
a  pedantic  ceremonialist,  79. 

Confucius     and     Lau-tzi,     thinkers, 


INDEX 


381 


representatives  of  Chinese  Litera- 
ture, 70. 

Cooper,  James  F.,  218. 

Corax,  a  teacher  of  oratory.  111. 

Coreans,  The,  study  Chinese  Litera- 
ture, 67. 

Corinna,  Language  of,  101. 

Corneille,  Influence  of,  on  Mme.  de 
La  Fayette,  16 ;  the  tragedies  of, 
185-186;  Dryden  indebted  to, 
193 ;  model  for  Italian  drama, 
200  ;  admired  by  Gottsched,  201  ; 
drama  of  the  "Cid,"  238,  278; 
other  masterpieces  of,  278 ;  seven- 
teenth, the  century  of,  284. 

Cosmopolitan  Outlook,  The  (Wil- 
liam P.  Trent),  333-354;  presi- 
dential generalizers,  333-334 ;  cos- 
mopolitan spirit  wanting  in  Ameri- 
cans, 334-335  ;  elements  of,  here, 
335 ;  belief  in  the  rights  of  man, 
335-336 ;  Tolstoy  a  true  cosmo- 
politan, 337-338 ;  the  minor  na- 
tionalities, 339 ;  and  the  greater, 
tend  to  nationalism,  339-340 ; 
the  better  citizen,  the  better  cos- 
mopolitan, 340-341  ;  international 
literary  relations,  340-342  ;  Byron 
in  France,  342  ;  triumph  of  prose 
over  verse,  343-346  ;  the  glory  of 
poetry,  346-347 ;  the  subjective 
and  objective  in  Literature  and 
in  life,  347-348,  350-351 ;  civiliza- 
tion expanding,  349  ;  future  Litera- 
ture will  be  subjective  and  there- 
fore cosmopolitan,  350-352 ;  de- 
cline of  the  classics,  353. 

Council  of  Trent  reasserted  authority 
of  dogma,  170. 

Court  chronicles  of  China,  83. 

Cousin,  a  cabinet  minister,  288. 

Cowley  ode,  Dryden's  use  of  the, 
196. 

Crassus,  a  teacher  of  Cicero,  124. 

Crea^ve  power  of  Greeks,  Changes 
in,  94. 

Crescimbeni,  Giam  Mario,  literary 
historian,  221. 

Critic,  First  and  foremost  duty  of 
the,  363. 

Criticism,  Code  of,  not  unchangeable, 
17  ;   must  lag  behind  creation,  18 ; 


earliest  attempt  at,  18  ;  few  novel- 
ties in,  19 ;  Boileau  a  model  for, 
189 ;  literary,  in  Italy,  225-228. 

Criticism,  Literary  (J.  E.  Spingarn), 
355-373:  The  secret  of,  355;  Ana- 
tole  France  on,  356 ;  the  impres- 
sionistic critic,  356-358 ;  no  new 
battle  against,  358-359 ;  impres- 
sionism and  dogmatism,  feminine 
and  masculine  criticism,  359-360 ; 
Literature  an  expression  of  some- 
thing, 360-361  ;  the  study  of 
expression,  363-364 ;  all  expres- 
sion is  art,  364  ;  rules  of,  abolished, 
365  ;  genres  done  with,  365-366  ; 
abstract  classifications,  366-367 ; 
theory  of  style,  367-368;  moral 
judgment,  368;  "dramatic,"  done 
with,  368-369;  technique,  369- 
370;  poetic  themes,  370-371; 
evolution,  371. 

Croce,  Benedetto,  on  Medieval  Liter- 
ature, 151 ;  thinker  and  critic, 
373. 

Crusades,  The,  united  men,  134. 

"Cupid's  Whirligig"  of  Bhartrihari, 
55. 

"Curse  of  the  angry  priest.  The," 
drama  by  Kshemis'vara,  54. 

Cyclopedia,  The  great  Chinese,  86- 
87. 

Cynewulf,  characterized,  150. 

Dactylic  verse,  105. 

Damascus,  Byzantine  influences  at 
Court  at,  33. 

Dandin,  "Adventures  of  the  Ten 
Princes,"  by,  56. 

Daniel,  the  man  of  judgment,  on 
border-land  of  mythology,  27. 

Dante,  Joy  in  a  lasting  friendship 
with,  10,  Lowell's  admiration  for, 
10;  Boccaccio  began  lectures  on, 
18 ;  in  Semitic  translation,  24 ; 
minutely  self-searching,  140  ;  alle- 
gory a  reality  to,  141  ;  on  jurisdic- 
tion of  Roman  Empire,  156-157; 
on  the  noble  vernacular,  157,  161, 
162 ;  reproached  Florentines  for 
deserting  legitimate  government, 
158  ;  on  Vergil,  163  ;  yields  reason 
to     dogma,     174 ;      criticized     by 


382 


INDEX 


Bettinelli,  226 ;  study  of,  revived, 

227. 
Dargomyzhski  on  music,  326. 
Dark  Ages,  Literature  in  the,   135 ; 

romantic    spirit    of    the,    136-138 ; 

feudalism  an  advance  over  the,  141. 
"Dawn  Age,"  The,  of  Greek  civiliza- 
tion, 93. 
De  Quincey,  Prose  style  of,  210. 
"De  Republica,"  see  "On  the  State." 
"Decameron,"   The,    in    the    vulgar 

tongue,  161. 
"Defence   and   Ennoblement   of   the 

French   Language,"    Du    Bellay's, 

171. 
Defoe,  Daniel,  on  Don  Quixote,   243. 
Delavigne,      Casimir,      The     "Louis 

XI"  of,  279. 
Delphi,  Games  at,  109. 
Democracy    in    Literature,    Roman- 
ticism the  beginning  of,  205,  211- 

212. 
Democritus  and  Heraclitus,  353. 
Demosthenes,    The    orations    of,    5 ; 

influence   of,    on   Cicero,    14 ;     the 

incomparable,  113;   death  of,   114. 
Descartes,    Influence    of,  on    French 

thought,  185 ;    on  Italian  thought, 

224. 
Deschanel  on    "Le  Romantisme  des 

classiques,"  207. 
Desert,  The,  the  source  of  every  great 

effort,  27-28 ;    the  home  of  poetic 

expression,  32. 
Dhammapada,  The,  a  book  of  moral 

maxims,  51. 
Diagrams,  The  Eight,  of  the  "Canon 

of  Changes,"    73-75 ;     Won-wang 

on,  74-75. 
Dialect,  The  choral  lyric,  101-102. 
Dialect,    Divergence   of,    among   the 

branches  of  Greek  Literature,  99- 

103. 
Dialect,  The  Epic,  100. 
Dickens,    Charles,    Influence   of   Ben 

Jonson  on,  16  ;  Pinero  and  Jones  in- 
debted   to,    16 ;     prostituting    his 

power  of  invention,  264. 
Diction     in     the     Elizabethan     and 

classical  periods,  192. 
Dictionary  of  the  French  Academy, 

184. 


Diderot  imitated  Goldoni,  229. 

"Didone  abbandonata,"  The,  of 
Metastasio,  223. 

"Difesa  di  Dante,"  The,  of  Gozzi, 
227. 

Dionysius,  Worship  of,  109. 

"  Directorium, "  The,  52. 

"  Dissertazioni  Vossiane,"  The,  of 
Zeno,  220. 

Distich,  The  elegiac,  suited  to  for- 
cible expression,  107-108. 

"Divine  Comedy,"  The,  of  Dante, 
an  example  of  allegory,  141  ;  prog- 
ress of  Roman  eagle  celebrated 
in  the,  157  ;  repudiated  by  Betti- 
nelli, 226. 

"Doctrine  of  the  Mean"  (Chung- 
yung),  The,  79. 

Don  Juan,  a  wandering  lyrical  hero, 
11. 

Don  Quixote,  at  home  in  the  hills  of 
Spain,  1 1 ;  purpose  of,  243-244  ; 
Howells  and  Fitzmaurice  Kelly  on, 
244-246. 

"Doiia  Perfecta,"  The,  of  Galdos, 
249. 

"Donation  of  Constantine,"  The,  a 
forged  warrant  of  legitimacy,  157. 

Dorians,  The,  cultivated  the  choral 
lyric,  100-102. 

"Dragontea,"  poem  by  Lope  de 
Vega,  247. 

Drake,  Sir  Francis,  attacked  in  poem 
by  Lope  de  Vega,  247. 

Drama,  The,  never  developed  among 
the  Semites,  25  ;  mj'thological  ele- 
ment in,  repellent  to  their  mono- 
theism, 25;    in  China,  89-90. 

Drama,  The  Attic,  102-103,  109. 

Drama,  The  comic,  originated  with 
the  Dorians,  102. 

Drama,  The  Elizabethan,  condemned 
by  Sidney,  181,  182;  contrasted 
with  the  Greek,  209-210  ;  struggle 
and  waste  in  the,  266-267. 

Drama,  Greek,  Types  in  the,  con- 
trasted with  those  of  Racine,  187 ; 
contrasted  with  the  Elizabethan, 
209-210. 

Drama,  Greek  comic.  Development 
of,  14. 

Drama,    The   Indian,    52-54;     Kali- 


INDEX 


383 


dasa's"S'akuntala,"53  ;  the  "  Clay- 
Cart "  of  King  S'udraka,  54. 

Drama,  The  Italian,  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  223,  228,  229,  231. 

Drama,  neo-classic,  Conventions  of, 
overthrown,  217. 

Drama,  The  Spanish,  246-250. 

Dramatist,  Horace's  rules  for  the,  365. 

Dramatists,  The  Attic,  and  the  Eliza- 
bethan, 17. 

Dryden,  satirist,  190 ;  important 
figure  in  classical  period,  192-193  ; 
Latin  charm  in,  194,  199 ;  as  a 
translator,  195 ;  first  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  wits,  196 ;  use  of 
the  heroic  couplet  and  the  Cowley 
ode  by,  196. 

Du  Bellay,  formulated  classic  canon, 
171  ;  on  discarding  idiomatic 
literature  for  classic,  181,  182 ; 
elegant  art  of,  284. 

Dumas,  began  as  a  playwright,  15, 
279;    stealings  of,   125. 

Dumas  fils  indebted  to  Balzac,  16. 

Dunbar,  influenced  by  lore-allegory, 
140. 

Duruy,  a  cabinet  minister,  288. 

Dyerzhavin,  323. 

Ebed  Yesu,  The  Syriac  Makamahs 
of,  35. 

Echegaray,  Countess  Pardo  Bazan 
on,  250. 

"Echo,  The,"  of  Pushkin,  Transla- 
tion of,  324. 

Eclipses  of  the  sun  mentioned  in 
Chinese  records,  75. 

"Edward,"  Quotation  from,  144-145. 

Edward  III,  Court  of,  137. 

Ego,  Rights  of  the,  212. 

Egypt,  Psalms  of  the  priests  and 
singers  of,  28-29 ;  beginnings  of 
Art,  Architecture,  and  Literature 
to  be  found  in,  40. 

Egypt,  Mohammedan,  The  poets  of, 
34. 

Egyptians  submitted  to  religious 
enthusiasm  of  the  Arabs,  23. 

Eighteenth  century  the  period  of 
the  Classical  Rule,  177 ;  pseudo- 
classic,  211;  the  Settecento  in 
Italy,  219-231. 


"Electra,"  The,  of  Galdos.  249. 

Elegiac  poetry,  Composiition  of,  104, 
107. 

Elegies  of  Ch'u,  by  K'ii  Yiian,  88. 

Eliot,  George,  spoiling  novels,  264. 

Elizabethan  Drama,  see  Drama,  the 
Elizabethan. 

Ellis,  Havelock,  on  Shakspere  and 
Bacon,  7 ;  on  Hawthorne  and 
Renan,  7  ;  on  Russia  and  Spain, 
318;  on  Russia's  future,  331-332. 

Eloquence  lauded,  160  ;  Gabriel  Har- 
vey on,  161. 

"Eloquenza  italiana,"  The,  of  Fon- 
tanini.   Note  to,   by  Zeno,  220. 

"Encyclopedia,"  The,  of  Diderot  and 
d'Alembert,  287. 

Encyclopedists,  French,  Italian  coun- 
terparts to  the,  224. 

English,  Platonic  idea  of,  162. 

English  Literature,  Influence  of  King 
James'  version  of  Bible  on,  41  ; 
classical  period  in,  177,  182-183, 
191-199 ;  Romanticism  in,  206, 
216,  218. 

English  Literature  (Ashley  H. 
Thorndike),  251-272:  Our  heri- 
tage, 251 ;  relation  of,  to  other 
national  literatures,  252-253 ; 
Langland  and  Chaucer,  253 ;  no 
central  authority  in,  255-256 ; 
expansion  and  democratization  of, 
256-257;  lack  of  form  in,  257- 
259 ;  the  only  fine  art  in  which 
the  English  have  excelled,  259 ; 
its  trinity  of  graces,  259 ;  poetic 
style,  260 ;  moral  purpose  in,  261  ; 
moral  criticism  of  life  the  essential 
of,  262 ;  prodigious  waste  in,  263- 
264 ;  waste  and  profit  in  Byron 
265 ;  has  attracted  great  men 
266  ;  the  Elizabethan  drama,  266 
wastefulness  justified,  267  ;  nature 
realism,  and  romance  in,  267-268 
influence  of,  on  the  national  life 
268  ;  the  Victorian  Literature,  269 
separation  of  American  from,  269- 
270 ;  the  spirit  of,  270-272  ;  called 
individualistic  by  Bruneti^re,  291. 

Ennius,  a  soldier  before  he  was  a 
poet,  118. 

Epic  dialect,  The,  92. 


384 


INDEX 


Epic  poetry,  No  development  of, 
among  the  Semites,  26  ;  composed 
in  hexameters,  104. 

Epicurus,  philosopher.  The  aim  of, 
120. 

Erasmus  protested  against  Human- 
ism,  170. 

Erskine,  John,  The  Classical  Rule, 
177-202. 

Ethiopic  poetry  religious,  31. 

Euclid  grounded  on  Babylonian 
mathematics  translated  into  East- 
ern tongues,  24. 

Euripides,  Eighteen  plays  of,  pre- 
served, 95  ;  transformed  the  drama, 
109. 

Exotism  a  characteristic  of  the 
Romantic  movement,  216. 

Fables  of  Bidpai,  The,  translated 
through  the  Syriac,  37. 

Fabliaux  of  the  French  satirists. 
Flavor  of  Middle  Ages  in,  5. 

Fabliaux  of  the  Middle  Ages,  Coarse- 
ness of  the,  146. 

"Faerie  Queene,"  Spenser's,  a  sermon 
on  world-renouncing,  175. 

Faguet  on  the  rules  of  Art,  8. 

Falstaff  abides  at  home  in  England, 
11. 

Fantoni,  Giovanni,  the  poet,  230. 

Farozdak,  Satire  of,  33. 

Faust,  a  transplanted  seedling,  11  ; 
embodied  supernaturalism,  215; 
292-293;  incommensurable,  304; 
lines  from  the  Prelude,  307. 

"Ferumbras,"  medieval  romance, 
149. 

Feudal  period.  The,  exalted  woman, 
138 ;  passion  for  form  and  conven- 
tion in,  139-140;  virtues  of,  141- 
142. 

Feudal  system  in  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, 134. 

Fichto,  Romanticism  in,  209 ;  the 
work  of,  292. 

Fick,  Theory  of,  on  Homeric  poems, 
92. 

Fiction,  Modern  Spanish,  248-250. 

Fiction,  The  prose,  of  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  126. 

Fiction,  Sanskrit  prose,  56-57. 


Fielding,  a  master  of  prose  fiction,  15 ; 
began  as  a  playwright,  15. 

Fifteenth  century  compared  with 
eighteenth,  221.  ^ 

Figaro,  The,  of  Beaumarchais,  of 
Mozart,  and  of  Rossini,  12. 

Filelfo,  on  immortality,  100. 

Filial  piety  among  the  Chinese,  78 ; 
the  "Canon  of,"  80. 

Firdausi,  The  "Shah  Namah"  or 
"Book  of  Kings"  of,  60-61. 

FitzGerald,  Edward,  translator  from 
the  Persien,  62,  63. 

Fitzmaurice-Kelly,  James,  Transla- 
tion of,  from  the  "Cid,"  237;  on 
Cervantes,  242 ;  on  Don  Quixote, 
245-247. 

"Five  Canons"  (wu-king),  The,  73- 
78:  The  "Canon  of  Changes" 
(I -king),  73-75;  the  "Canon  of 
History"  (Shu-king),  75-76;  the 
"Canon  of  Odes"  {Shi-king),  76- 
77  ;  the  "Canon  of  Rites"  (Li-ki), 
77;  the  "Spring  and  Autumn" 
annals  (Ch'un-ts'iu),  77-78. 

Flemish,  Efforts  to  establish,  as  a 
literary  language  in  Belgium,  339. 

Fletcher,  Jefferson  B.,  The  Re- 
naissance,  155-175. 

Florentines,  The,  opposed  to  German 
polity,  158,  172. 

Fionas,  the  historian,  a  Spaniard, 
234. 

Folk-literature,  Conflict  between  the, 
and  the  Classical  ideal,  181. 

Fong-shui  of  the  Canon  of  Changes, 
75. 

Fonvizin  pleads  for  national  sim- 
plicity in  his  comedies,  324-325 ; 
satires  of,  327. 

Foreign  ideas  in  a  Literature  no  proof 
of    their   importation,  69. 

Form  divisions  of  Literature,  365- 
366. 

Form  not  a  characteristic  of  English 
Literature,  257-258. 

Formalism,  in  Literature,  139 ;  in 
warfare  and  religion,  140. 

Forteguerri,  Niccolo,  The  "Ricciar- 
detto"  of,  223. 

"Four  Books"  (ssi-shu).  The,  the 
text-books    of    Confucianism,    78- 


INDEX 


385 


80:  The  Lun-j/M,  "  Conversations  " 
or  "Diacotirses,"  78-79;  "The 
Great  Learning"  {Ta-hid),  79; 
"The  Doctrine  of  the  Mean" 
(Chun-yung),  79;  "The  Philo- 
sopher Mong"    {Mong-tzi),  79-80. 

"Four  Treasuries,"  The,  71  ;  com- 
mentaries and  expositions  in,  80- 
81;  the  second  of,  "Historians," 
81-83. 

France,  Literary  leadership  of,  in 
feudal  period,  134-135  ;  Romantic 
movement  in,  216-218;  interest  in 
other  Literatures  in,  341. 

Francis  of  Assissi  on  Death,  166. 

Frederick  the  Great,  Sojourn  of  Vol- 
taire with,  190. 

French,  A  Frenchman  cannot  write, 
slovenly,  295. 

French  Academy  founded,  184. 

French  authors,  natives  of  Paris, 
List  of,  7-8. 

French  classic  Literature  fulfils  the 
Roman  mood  of  the  Renaissance, 
172,  173. 

French  language,  Structure  of  the, 
275-276. 

French  Literature  (Adolphe  Cohn), 
273-289  :  Characteristics  of,  273  ; 
clearness,  274 ;  musical  element 
lacking  in  its  poetry,  275-276 ; 
line  dividing  poetry  and  prose  in, 
less  marked,  276 ;  uninterrupted 
flow  of  the  drama  in,  277-278  ;  the 
Romantic  revolt,  279 ;  the  Ro- 
mantic drama,  280-281 ;  depen- 
dent on  excellence  of  expression, 
283  ;  Voltaire  and  Bossuet,  282- 
283;  the  mission  of,  283-284; 
identity  of  historical  and  literary 
periods,  284-886 ;  politics  and 
Literature  distinct,  285-286  ;  polit- 
ical and  literary  revolution,  286- 
287 ;  speeches  and  leaders,  288- 
289 ;  defined  by  Bruneti^re  as 
social,  291  ;  influence  of,  upon 
American,  341. 

French  Literature,  The  classic,  ful- 
fils the  Roman  mood,  negates  the 
Greek,  172 ;  problems  of  Class- 
icism in,  182-183 ;  Classical  rule 
in,  184-191 ;  contrasted  with 
2c 


English  Classicism,  193 ;  Roman- 
ticism in,  206 ;  tends  toward 
Classicism,  211 ;  influence  of,  on 
Italy,  224. 

French  people,  A  sense  of  style  the 
heritage  of  the,  93. 

French  poetry.  The  very  essence  of, 
275-276. 

French  Revolution,  the  beginning  of 
the  Romantic  movement,  177,  205  ; 
in  Literature,  212. 

Friendship  with  a  great  author. 
Unfading  joy  in  a  lasting,  9-10. 

Froissart,  Society  described  in,  136 ; 
on  battle  of  Poitiers,  140. 

Fronto  admired  Sallust,  127. 

Frugoni,  Innocenzo,  Italian  poet, 
221. 

"Frusta  letteraria,"  The,  of  Baretti, 
227. 

Fu-hi,  legendary  emperor,  73. 

Gaius  Gracchus,  a  teacher  of  Cicero, 

124. 
Galahad,      saintliest      of      medieval 

knights,  141. 
Galdos,     Perez,     Spanish    writer    of 

fiction,  249-250. 
Galen  grounded  on  Babylonian  med- 
icine     translated      into      Eastern 

tongues,  24. 
Galiani  and  Lorenzi,   The  "Socrate 

imaginario"  of,  223. 
Galilei,  Galileo,  Work  of,  continued 

by  his  disciples,  219. 
Gardiner,  Percy,  on  the  Greek  spirit, 

93. 
Gathas,  the  "hymns"  of   Zoroaster, 

58-59. 
Gautier,  Theophile,  on  Spain,  236. 
Gellius,  Offer  of,  to  be  mediator  to 

the    philosophers,    121 ;     admired 

Sallust,  127. 
Genius,  20. 

Geography,  The  science  of,  39. 
"Georgics,"  The,  of  Vergil,  129. 
German,  The,  a  loyalist  and  a  radical, 

297-298  ;    his  patriotism,  298  ;   the 

chief    German    hero    of    an   earlier 

day,  298. 
German  barbarians  called  themselves 

Romans,  156. 


386 


INDEX 


German  emperors  considered  up- 
starts by  the  Italians,  158. 

German  Literature  (Calvin  Thomas) 
291-310:  Different  at  different 
epochs,  291  ;  M.  Bruneti^re  on, 
291-292;  is  it  philosophic?  292- 
293 ;  criticism  of  life  in  all  vital 
literature,  292-293  ;  language  and 
ethnic  character  factors  in,  293 ; 
genius  of  German  poetry  like  that 
of  English,  293-294;  periodic 
structure  of  German  prose,  295 ; 
ethnic  character  indefinable,  295- 
297;  Age  of  the  "Nibelung  Lay" 
and  the  Age  of  Goethe,  298-299; 
the  poetry  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
300;  the  "Nibelung  Lay"  and  the 
"Iliad,"  301 ;  Luther  and  Hans 
Sachs,  302 ;  scholar-poets  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  302 ;  the 
new  epoch,  303-304  ;  Goethe,  304- 
308;  Lessing,  308;  Herder,  308- 
309;     SchiUer,    309-310. 

German  Literature,  Modern,  takes 
its  rise  with  Luther's  translation  of 
the  Bible,  40-41  ;  Romanticism  in, 
206 ;  classical  period  of,  214 ; 
greatest  epoch  in,  217. 

"Germania,"  of  Tacitus,  136. 

Germany,  Classicism  in,  200-201  ; 
Romantic  movement  in,  216. 

Gessner,  Spirit  of,  in  Bertola,  230. 

Gettysburg  address.  The,  3. 

Giannone,  Pietro,  "Storia  civile  del 
reame  di  Napoli,"  220. 

"Gil  Bias,"  to  be  traced  in  the 
"Marriage  of  Figaro,"  16. 

Gilgamesh,  Babylonian  story  of,  26- 
27  ;  Michael  Angelo's  two-horned 
Moses,  27. 

"Giornale  del  letterati"  of  Zeno, 
220-221. 

"Giorno,"  The,  of  Parini,  230. 

"Giovanni  Giscala,"  The,  of  Varano, 
231. 

Gladstone,  The  "Juventus  Mundi" 
of,  93. 

Gods,  A  host  of,  became  a  "God  of 
hosts,"  26. 

Gods  of  the  Vedic  host,  44. 

Goethe,  in  Semitic  translation,  24. 

Goethe,  Classical  influence  in,  201 ; 


on  Romanticism,  207 ;  return  of 
sentiment  in  his  early  lyrics,  212; 
rhythm  in,  295 ;  the  Age  of,  298- 
299 ;  radiant  genius  of,  304 ; 
taken  in  his  entirety,  305  ;  wisest 
of  poets,  306-307  ;  his  contempt  of 
critics,  355  ;   on  criticism,  363. 

Gogol  on  his  own  work,  321-322, 
325,  327. 

Goldoni,  Carlo,  dramatist,  228-229. 

Goldsmith  not  a  true  classicist,  199. 

Gorgias,  the  orator.  111  ;  a  Sophist, 
112. 

Gothic  night.  The  thick,  of  Rabelais, 
155-156. 

Goths,  The,  submitted  to  religious 
enthusiasm  of  the  Arabs,  23 ;  in 
Spain,  235. 

Gottfried  von  Strassburg,  135. 

GoTTHEiL,  Richard  John  Horatio, 
Semitic  Literatures,  21-41. 

Gottsched  admired  the  French  clas- 
sicists, 201. 

"Gotz  von  Berlichingen "  to  be 
traced  in  "Ivanhoe,"  16. 

Gourmet  and  gourmand,  16. 

Gozzi,  Carlo,  Fairy  tales  of,  228. 

Gozzi,  Gaspare,  imitated  the  Specta- 
tor, 200 ;  revived  the  study  of 
Dante,  227;  "  Osservatore "  of, 
227. 

Grseco-Roman  culture.  Diffusion  of, 
117. 

"Grammarian,"    Browning's,    159. 

Grammarians,  The  Italian,  were 
patriots,  160 ;  called  Humanists, 
162. 

Gravina,  Giavincenzo,  patron  of 
Literature,  223  ;    critic,  225. 

Gray,  Thomas,  appointed  Professor 
of  Modern  Literature  and  Lan- 
guages, 18  ;  discovered  the  charm 
of  early  English,  198. 

Gray's  "O  lacrimarum  fons"  a  per- 
fect Latin  poem,  198. 

"Great  Learning"  {Ta-hio),  The,  79. 

Greece,  Ancient,  The  stage  the  pulpit 
in,  26 ;  took  captive  her  rude 
conqueror  R6me,  116. 

Greek  and  Roman  compared,  9. 

Greek  civilization.  The  dawn  age  of, 
93. 


INDEX 


387 


Greek  dramatic  characters  idealized, 
187. 

Greek  language,  Widespread  use  and 
persistence  of  the,  94 ;  adequate 
for  expression  of  abstract  thought, 
123. 

Greek  life.  Literature  the  outgrowth 
of,  97,  103-110. 

Greek  Literature  (Edward  Delavan 
Perry)  91-114:  Covers  a  thou- 
sand years,  92  ;  posterior  limit  of, 
93-94  ;  value  of  existing  remnant 
of,  97 ;  characteristics :  extreme 
variety  of,  98-103 ;  dialect  and 
form  in,  99-101  ;  intimate  connec- 
tion with  Greek  life,  103-110; 
congenital,  103 ;  Greek  oratory, 
110-112;  appropriateness  of  style 
to  subject-matter,  110-114;  Attic 
prose,  112-114;  post-classical, 
abundant,  114;  came  into  its  own, 
117;  masterpieces  of,  classics, 
178,  211 ;  source  of  modern  litera- 
ture, 213. 

Greek  Mss.,  Earliest,  95. 

Greek  Middle  and  New  Comedy 
perished,  96. 

Greek  schools  of  Syria  and  Mesopo- 
tamia, Influence  of  the,  on  Syriac 
Literature,  37. 

Greek  society,  Earliest  stage  of, 
105. 

Greek  spirit  and  the  Hebraic,  12 ; 
conceptions  about  the,  91  ;  shown 
in  dramas  and  temples,  93. 

Greeks,  ancient.  The  liberty,  har- 
mony, and  proportion  of  the,  re- 
covered, 12-13 ;  cared  little  for 
fiction,  15  ;  prevalent  ideas  of,  91  ; 
creative  power  of,  94  ;  not  a  homo- 
geneous race,  97  ;  not  assimilated 
by  the  Romans,  115;  perfected 
types  of  literary  expression,  116; 
influence  of,  on  Roman  life  and 
Literature,  116-117. 

Griboyedoff,  "Misfortune  from  In- 
telligence," a  cry  against  Gallo- 
mania, 325  ;   satires  of,  327. 

Grimm,  Herman,  on  Goethe,  306. 

Grimmelshausen,  worth  reading,  302. 

Gudaca,  King,  Inscription  on  a  stele 
of,  23. 


Guerara,  on  books  read  in  his  time, 

241. 
Guizot,  Prime  Minister,  288. 

Hafiz,  prince  of  Persian  lyric  poets, 
65. 

"Hamlet,"  a  tale  of  Denmark,  6. 

Han  dynasty.  Catalogue  of  the  Im- 
perial collection  of  the  earlier,  70. 

Haoma,  The  Persian,  is  the  soma- 
plant,  44. 

Haroun  al  Raschid,  10 ;  court  poets 
of,  33. 

Harrington,  Sir  John,  on  a  Human- 
ist, 162. 

Harsha,  King,  a  dramatist  of  India, 
54. 

Hartmann  von  Aue,  135. 

Harvey,  Gabriel,  on  Eloquence,  161 ; 
advocate  of  classical  forms,  183. 

Hawthorne,  Havelock  Ellis  on  the 
"glamor"  in  pages  of,  7,  218. 

Hazlitt  on  Lope  de  Vega,  247. 

Hebraic  spirit.  Movement  and  conse- 
quences of  the,  12. 

Hebrew,  not  a  church  language  only, 
30. 

Hebrew  belles-lettres  under  influence 
of  writers  of  Western  Europe,  24. 

Hebrew  constructions.  The  sim- 
plicity of,  lost  in  translations,  35. 

Hebrew  Literature  not  ended  with 
the  canonization  of  the  Bible,  35 ; 
the  extent  of,  36. 

Hebrew  poetry.  Characteristics  of, 
29-30  ;  takes  on  a  modern  dress,  30. 

Hebrews,  The,  and  the  desert,  27-28. 

Hegel,  Taine  borrowed  from,  19 ; 
the  work  of,  292. 

Heine,  Rhythm  in,  295. 

"Heliand,"  a  Saxon  epic,  150. 

Hell,  The  thought  of,  a  comfort  to 
outraged  impotence,  163. 

Hellenism,  The  movement  of,  12,  13  ; 
tide  of,  reached  its  flood  in  Cicero 
and  Vergil,  117. 

Henry,  the  Luxemburger,  158. 

"Henry  Esmond,"  Thackeray's, 
Horatian  allusions  in,  195. 

Herder,  the  inspired  pathfinder,  308  ; 
father  of  the  historical  method, 
309. 


388 


INDEX 


"Hermosura  de  Angelica,"  The,  of 
Lope  de  Vega,  247. 

Herodotus,  Charm  of,  101. 

Herodotus,  The,  of  China,  Ssl-ma 
Ts'ien,  82. 

Heroic  couplet,  Dryden's  use  of  the, 
196. 

Herrick,  Robert,  Diction  of,  192. 

Hesiod,  Didactic  poetry  of,  98 ;  de- 
scribes life  of  the  people,  106  ;  use 
of  hexameter,  108. 

Hexameter,  Greek  use  of,  103,  104  ; 
development  of  the,  105-106,  108 ; 
in  Sidney's  "  Arcadia,"  183. 

Hiatus,  Use  of  the,  formulated  by  the 
Pleiade,  183. 

Hindu  phUosophy,  The  beginnings  of, 
48-49. 

Hindus,  Animal  tales  developed 
among  the,  51. 

Hindustan,  Northern,  The  sunrise 
splendors  of,  inspired  the  Rishis,  46. 

Hippocrates  grounded  on  Babylonian 
medicine  translated  into  Eastern 
tongues,  24. 

HiRTH,  Friedrich,  Chinese  Litera- 
ture, 67-90. 

Hispanic  Society  of  America,  Vital- 
izing activities  of  the,  233. 

"Histoire  de  la  Chine  "  of  Father  de 
Mailla,  84. 

Historians  (sht),  The,  71,  81-83. 

Historical  composition  in  Latin 
Literature,  126-127. 

Histories  of  holy  men,  36. 

History,  Evolution  of,  14  ;  not  repre- 
sented in  Indian  Literature,  57. 

Hitopades'a,  The,  or  "Book  of  Good 
Counsel,"  and  its  translations,  51- 
52. 

Homer,  Ronsard  on  the  "naive 
facility"  of,  18-19;  Thoreau  on, 
19 ;  translated  into  Syriac,  37 ; 
one  of  the  great  classic  masters, 
257. 

Homeric  language.  Genetic  history 
and  subsequent  career  of  the,  92. 

Homeric  poems,  the  oldest  Greek 
literary  monuments,  91,  116;  lan- 
guage of,  92  ;  heroic,  98  ;  put  into 
final  shape  by  lonians,  101 ;  dis- 
play condition  of  society,  105-106. 


Horace  peoples  the  ruins  of  Rome,  4  ; 
"lesi^cle  d'Auguste  en  personne," 
118;  champions  Latin  poetry,  120  ; 
an  accomplished  man  of  the  world, 
131  ;  his  poetry,  130-131 ;  Du 
Bellay  on,  181  ;  "Ars  Poetica"  of, 
imitated  by  Boileau,  189 ;  echoes 
of,  in  Dryden,  194 ;  one  of  the 
great   classic   masters,    257. 

"Horace"  of  Corneille,  Dramatic 
struggle  in  the,  185. 

Hortensius  rival  of    Cicero,   125. 

Howells,  Wm.  Dean,  Realism  of,  13 ; 
adverse  critics  of,  19  ;  criticism  of, 
202  ;    on  Don  Quixote,  244-245. 

"Hudibras,"  a  burlesque,   193. 

Hugo,  Victor,  Violent  romanticism 
of,  13  ;  began  as  a  playwright,  15  ; 
the  "Triboulet"  of,  210;  and  the 
New  Republic  of  Letters,  217 ; 
"Hernani,"  279;  dramatic  pro- 
duction of,  at  head  of  the  Roman- 
tic School,  280  ;  the  nineteenth  the 
century  of,  284 ;  works  of,  a  run- 
ning commentary  on  political 
developments  in  France  and  Eu- 
rope, 288. 

Humanism,  Conflict  of  divinity  and, 
162-163 ;    of  Shakspere,  173-174. 

Humanists,  defined,  162  ;  doctrine  of, 
at  variance  with  medieval  Chris- 
tianity, 163;  spread  of  ideas  of, 
164-170 ;  inveighed  against  alien 
rule,  172. 

"Husbandman's  Calendar"  of  He- 
siod, 108. 

Hymn  of  praise,  A  sacred,  the  most 
ancient  form  of  Indo-European 
Literature,  44. 

"Hymnes  in  Honour  of  Love  and 
Beautie,"  Spenser's,  174. 

Hymns,  suktas.  The  noblest  of  the, 
addressed  to  Varuna,  45. 

Iambic  trimeter.  The,  104 ;  suited 
to  forcible  expression,    107-108. 

Iberians,  The,  234. 

Ibn  Ishak,  biographer  of  Mohammed, 
39. 

Ibn  Khalddn,  the  first  philosopher 
of  history,  39. 

Ibn  Sina,  Quatrain  from,  64. 


INDEX 


389 


Iceland  drew  from  French  romances, 
135. 

Ideals  and  stories  of  the  past  a  source 
of  inspiration,  213. 

Ideals,  Greek,  Loose  talk  of,  91;  in- 
fluences of,  on  Roman  culture,  116. 

I-king,  the  "Canon  of  Changes,"  73- 
75. 

"Iliad"  and  "Odyssey"  the  noblest 
and  only  survivals  of  the  whole 
body  of  epic  poetry,  95-96 ;  the 
"Iliad"  a  highly  artificial  produc- 
tion, 118  ;  peerless  among  the  folk- 
epics,  301. 

"Imitation  of  Christ"  renunciation 
of  world,  164. 

Impressionism  and  dogmatism  in 
criticism,  359. 

India  a  terra  incognita  to  the  Chinese, 
69-70. 

India  and  Persia,  History  of,  covers 
three  millenniums,  43. 

India  and  Persia,  The  Literature  of 
(A.  V.  W.  Jackson)  43-66:  In- 
spiration for  appreciation  of,  43 ; 
the  most  ancient  form  a  sacred 
hymn,  43-44 ;  the  Rig  Veda,  44  ; 
hymns  to  Varuna,  45-46 ;  to 
Ushas,  46-47  ;  the  Brahmanas  and 
Sutras,  47 ;  earliest  specimens  of 
prose,  48 ;  the  Upanishads,  the 
oldest  philosophical  treatises,  48- 
49 ;  epic  poems :  The  Mahabha- 
rata  and  the  Ramayana,  29-51 ; 
a  dialectic  Literature  in  Pali :  the 
Dhammapada,  51 ;  the  Jatakas, 
51 ;  the  animal  fables,  51  ;  the 
Pancatantra  and  the  Hitopades'a, 
51-52;  the  drama:  Kalidasa  and 
others,  52-54 ;  lyric  poetry,  54- 
66 ;  prose  fiction,  56-57 ;  other 
branches  of  Literature,  57  ;  Persia, 
58-66 :  Zarathushtra,  58 ;  the 
Gathas  of  Zoroaster,  58 ;  the 
Avestan  Yashts,  59  ;  Pahlavi  Liter- 
ature, 59-60 ;  epic  poetry  of 
Firdausi,  60-61 ;  rhymed  romance 
of  Nizami,  61 ;  mysticism  and  the 
mystic  poets,  61-62 ;  lyric  poetry, 
62-66;    prose  and  drama,  65-66. 

Indian  folk-lore  in  Chinese  Litera- 
ture, 69-70. 


Indians,  The,  submitted  to  religious 
enthusiasm  of  the  Arabs,  23. 

Indra,  the  storm-god,  44. 

lonians.  The,  formed  the  Epic  dia- 
lect, 100 ;  and  the  first  artistic 
prose,  101. 

Iran,  First  poetry  of,  a  prophet's 
song,  58. 

Iranians,  The,  submitted  to  the  reli- 
gious enthusiasm  of  the  Arabs, 
23. 

Irish  Literature,  Efforts  to  establish 
an,  339. 

Irish  people,  A  sense  of  style  the  heri- 
tage of  the,  93. 

Ir-ya,  a  dictionary  of  terms  used  in 
the  Chinese  Classics,  80-81. 

Isaac  of  Antioch,  a  Syriac  poet  of 
merit,  31. 

Islam,  Source  of,  21  ;  the  gift  of  the 
Jews,  23 ;  born  to  man's  estate, 
27 ;  all  the  great  movements  of, 
nourished  in  the  desert,  28 ;  in- 
fluence of  the  founder  of,  38. 

Isocrates,  orator,  father  of  the  essay, 
113  ;    Cicero  indebted  to,  125. 

Italian  collectors.  Devotion  of  early, 
180. 

Italian  language  restricted  by  the 
"Accademia,"  227-228. 

Italian  Literature  in  the  Eighteenth 
Century  (Carlo  L.  Speranza) 
219-231  :  General  intellectual  ac- 
tivity in,  219-222;  sway  of 
Academy  of  Arcadia,  222-223; 
innovation  under  influence  of 
other  nations,  224-225  ;  potency  of 
crticism  in,  225-228 ;  reform  of 
the  drama  by  Goldoni,  228-229; 
Parini,  innovator  in  poetry,  229- 
230;  tragedies  of  Alfieri,  231; 
called  artistic  by  Bruneti^re,  291. 

Italians  blood  heirs  of  Romans,  158 ; 
followed  "Do  as  you  please" 
maxim,  168-169. 

Italy,  Condition  of,  after  Actium. 
129  ;  theme  of  Vergil's  "  Georgics," 
129 ;  Classicism  in,  200 ;  result 
of  Romantic  movement  in,  217 ; 
end  of  Spanish  donimation  in, 
222. 

Italy  in  Literature,  339. 


390 


INDEX 


"I vain"  of  Chretien  de  Troyes,  Quo- 
tation from,  143-144. 

"Ivanhoe,"  "Gotz  von  Berlichingen  " 
to  be  traced  in,  16. 

Jackson,  Abraham  Valentine  Wil- 
liams, The  Literature  of  India 
and  Persia,  43-66. 

Jacob  Burdeana,  36. 

Jacob  of  Serug,  a  Syriac  poet  of 
merit,  31. 

Jacobite  ecclesiastics.  Writings  of 
the,  36  ;   at  Greek  schools,  37. 

James,  Henry,  Criticism  of,  202. 

Japanese,  The,  study  Chinese  Litera- 
ture, 67. 

Jarir,  satire  of,  33. 

Jatakas,  The,  contain  a  mass  of  folk- 
lore, 51. 

Jayadeva,  The  lyrics  of,  parallel 
"Venus  and  Adonis,"  55. 

Jesus,  Teaching  of,  163. 

Jewish  philosophy  of  the  Middle 
Ages  an  echo  from  Hellas,  24. 

Jews,  Passion  of,  for  poetic  diction, 

22  ;   built  up  no  great  world-power, 

23  ;  had  their  prophets  and  teach- 
ers, 26 ;  post-Biblical  poetry  of 
the,  30 ;  not  assimilated  by  the 
Romans,  115. 

Job,  The  tragedy  of,  25. 

JoFFE,  JuDAH  A.,  Russian  Literature, 
307-332. 

John  IV,  [Ivan]  the  Terrible,  Tsar  of 
Russia,  314. 

Johnson,  Samuel,  a  product  of  Classi- 
cism, 13  ;  on  Dryden  as  translator, 
195  ;  sums  up  English  Classicism, 
199 ;  found  Shakspere  immoral,  262 ; 
on  standard  of  criticism,  363-364. 

Jones,  Henry  Arthur,  indebted  to 
Dickens  and  Thackeray,  16. 

Jonson,  Ben,  Influence  of,  on  Dickens, 
16 ;  on  beauty  in  small  things, 
110  ;  on  language  of  Spenser,  162  ; 
on  Death,  166;  on  his  own  time, 
170;    on  Shakspere,   173. 

Judaism,  Origin  of,  21. 

Judgment,  Last,  Terrors  of  the,  real 
to  the  medieval  man,  147. 

Julian,  Emperor,  Romance  of  the, 
307. 


"Julius    Csesar"    a    tale    of    ancient 

Rome,  6. 
Justinian,  The  Code  of,  4. 
Juvenal,  We  walk  the  streets  of  Rome 

with,   119;    his  pitiless  indictment 

of    his    time,    132 ;     echoes    of    in 

Dryden,  194. 

Kalidasa,  the  Hindu  Shakspere,  53 ; 
as  a  lyric  poet,  55 ;  a  Sanskrit 
Marlowe,  55. 

"Kalilah  and  Dinmah,"  52. 

Kant,  The  work  of,  292. 

Kantemir,  Social  satire  in  verse  of, 
324. 

Karakoz  or  Shadow-play,  The  Turk- 
ish, 25. 

Kama,  the  Hector  of  the  Maha- 
bharata,  49. 

Kasidah,  the  Arabic,  Influence  of, 
on  Hebrew  poetry,  30  ;  the  form  of 
the,  33 ;  developed  by  al-Muta- 
nabbi,  33-34;  followed  by  the 
Muwashshah  and  the  Zajal,  34. 

Katha-Sarit  Sagara,  or,  "Ocean  of 
the  Streams  of  Story,"  57. 

Kavya  style  in  Sanskrit  fiction.  Con- 
ceits of  the,  57. 

Keats,  Classical  aspects  of,  214 ; 
poems  of,  260 ;  not  a  moralist, 
261-262. 

Kempis,  Thomas  k,  on  the  misery  of 
life,  164. 

Ker,  W.  P.,  on  the  term  "medieval," 
136. 

"Khusrau  and  Shirin,"  The,  of 
Nizami,  61. 

Khutbahs,  The  rhymed  prose  of  the, 
35. 

Klopstock  gave  evidence  of  Clas- 
sicism, 201. 

"Knight's  Tale"  and  its  source,  137. 

Koran,  Traditional  narratives  from 
Gilgamesh  in  the,  26-27 ;  the 
rhymed  prose  of  the,  34  ;  Arabic 
prose  first  put  to  writing  in  the, 
38  ;  a  masterpiece  of  Literature,  40. 

Kshemis'vara,  a  dramatist  of  India, 
54. 

K'ii  Yiian,  The  poetry  of,  88-89. 

Kuan-tzi,    philosopher-politician,    85. 

K'ung  Fu-tzi  (Confucius),  72-73. 


INDEX 


391 


La  BruySre,  "Characters"  of,  285. 

La  Fontaine,  Fables  of,  traced  back 
to  the  Pancatantra,  51-52 ;  a 
gallicized  ^sop,  190 ;  human 
nature  in,  285. 

La  Rochefoucauld's  "Maximes,"  190. 

Lailah,  female  poet,  33. 

Lamartine,  on  Napoleon,  277 ;  in 
the  legislature,  288. 

Landor  in  England,  214. 

Langland,  a  dreamer,  253. 

Lanzi,  Luigi,  "Storia  pittorica  d' 
Italia"  of,  221. 

Latin  language.  Flexibility  of  the, 
115;  Caesar's  "Commentaries"  a 
monument  of  the  native  capacity 
of  the,  123  ;  homogeneous  growth 
of  the,  132 ;  influence  of,  on  the 
EngHsh  Classicists,  193-195;  the 
haunting  power  of,  194. 

Latin  Literature  (Nelson  G.  Mc- 
Crea),  115-132:  Two  claims  of, 
115;  idea  of  civil  and  religious 
unity  of  mankind,  115-116;  ex- 
pressive of  the  national  genius, 
116;  assimilation  and  transmis- 
sion of  Greek  culture  by,  116-117  ; 
essentially  Roman  and  not  Greek, 
118  ;  the  Roman  spirit  in  Lucretius 
and  Catullus,  119-120;  Horace 
defends  poetry  on  utilitarian 
grounds,  120-121 ;  Cicero  justi- 
fies philosophy  on  same,  121-123  ; 
artistic  form  in,  created  by  Cicero, 
123—126 ;  historical  composition, 
Sallust,  Tacitus  and  Livy,  126- 
128 ;  Vergil,  Rome's  greatest 
poet,  129-130;  Horace,  130-131; 
continuously  developing  national 
life  in,  131  ;  Plautus,  Terence, 
Juvenal,  132  ;  homogeneous  growth 
of  the  language,  132 ;  master- 
pieces of,  classics,  175,  211  ;  source 
of  modern  literature,  213. 

Latin  Muses,  Power  of  the,  over  the 
English  mind,  195. 

Latin  writers  models  of  style,  117; 
place  of,  fixed,  118;  spirit  and 
work  of,  Roman,  118  ;  several  born 
in  Spain,  234. 

Latinistic  revival.  Sentiment  that 
inspired  the,  158. 


Latinity,  all  pervasive,  117;  of  the 
Church  Fathers  made  possible  by 
Cicero,  124. 

Latro,  Fortius,  Latin  author,  native 
of  Spain,  234. 

Lawrence  William  Withekle,  The 
Middle  Ages,  133-153. 

Le  Sage,  began  as  a  playwright,  15; 
influenced  by  Moli^re,  16. 

Leconte  de  Lisle,  a  Romanticist,  218. 

Legge,  James,  and  the  "Chinese 
Classics,"  73;  translator  of  the 
Shi-king,  77. 

"Legitimist  illusion"  deceived  Mid- 
dle Ages,  156-157. 

Leo  X  on  enjoying  the  Papacy,  169. 

Lermontoff  arraigns  the  society  of 
his  time,  325 ;  under  Byron's  in- 
fluence, 330. 

Lesbian  dialect  employed  by  Sappho, 
100. 

Lessing,  on  seeking  truth,  18 ;  first 
and  foremost  of  modern  critics,  18  ; 
employed  only  unity  of  action  in 
drama,  201 ;  the  superb  critic,  308. 

"Lettere  inglesi"  of  Bettinelli,  226. 

"Lettere  virgiliane"  of  Bettinelli, 
226. 

Library,  The  Imperial,  at  Peking, 
71-72. 

Life  influenced  by  Literature,  14. 

Literary  history,  Form  divisions  in, 
questioned,  366. 

Literature,  Approaches  to  (Brander 
Matthews),  1-20:  Art  and  Sci- 
ence, 1  ;  oldest  and  broadest  of 
the  liberal  arts,  1-2 ;  most  sig- 
nificant, 2  ;  friendly  and  intimate 
3 ;  result  of  individual  effort 
yet  racial  also,  4 ;  reveals  the 
characteristics  of  a  people,  5-6 
evidence  of  this  essence  of  nation- 
ality, 6-9  ;  the  secret  of  genius,  7 
major  writers  of  Latin  Literature 
Spaniards,  7 ;  French  authors 
natives  of  Paris,  7-8 ;  value  of 
good  taste  in,  8 ;  Boissier  and 
Pater,  8  ;  a  true  talisman  of  appre- 
ciation, 9;  ways  of  entering  the 
portals  of,  9 ;  friendship  with  a 
great  author,  9-10 ;  interest  in  a 
single  masterpiece  of,  10-11 ;  great 


392 


INDEX 


modifying  movements  in,  12-14 ; 
literary  species,  14—16  ;  a  reasoned 
appreciation,  16  ;  criticism,  17-19  ; 
reversion  to  ancient  types,  19-20  ; 
one  and  indivisible,  20. 

Literature,  Latitude  of  the  term,  22  ; 
no  ultimate  source  in,  124  ;  aristo- 
cratic structure  of,  overthrown, 
217;  for  all,  an  expression  of 
something,  260-261 ;  the  spirit  of, 
among  the  English  people,  270- 
272;  is  a  conversation,  274,  276; 
dependent  on  its  excellence,  281 ; 
a  record  of  the  best  for  the  best, 
297 ;  homogeneity  of  the  raw 
material  of  modern,  299 ;  Greek 
and  Roman    conceptions    of,    360. 

Literature,  Elizabethan,  Classic 
French  influence  against  extrava- 
gances of,  192 ;  by  translation 
possessed  other  literatures,   195. 

Literature,   French,   after   1100,    134. 

Literature,  Grseco-Roman,  Valua- 
tion of  human  life  in,  163 ;  new 
Italian  compared  with,  169-170. 

Literature,  Italian  Renaissance,  169- 
170. 

Livy,  continues  the  Ciceronian  tra- 
dition, 127 ;  wrote  a  prose  epic, 
128. 

Lomonosoff,  "Russia's  first  univer- 
sity," on  the  language,  316;  the 
odefa  of,  324. 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  218. 

Lope  de  Vega,  wrote  against  classic 
rules,  171  ;    dramatist,  246-247. 

Lorenzi  and  Galiani's  "Socrate  imagi- 
nario,"  223. 

Lorenzo  the  Magnificent  on  Enjoy 
thyself  now,  169. 

Love-allegory,  Vogue  of,  in  Middle 
Ages,  139. 

Lowell,  Admiration  of,  for  Dante,  10  ; 
on  Thomas  Gray  as  a  professor,  18. 

Lucan,  criticized  by  Petronius,  19 ; 
a  Spaniard,  234. 

Lucian,  latest  classical  author,  91,  94. 

Lucretius,  Gassendi's  revival  of,  10 ; 
the  Roman  spirit  of  sovereignty  in, 
119 ;  practical  results  primary 
aim  with,  120,  123 ;  echoes  of,  in 
Dryden,  194  ;   Mackail  on,  320. 


Lun-yu,     the     "Conversations"     of 

Confucius,  78. 
Luther,  "On  the  Liberty  of  a  Chris- 
tian Man,"  tract,  170 ;   belongs  to 

history  of  religion,  302. 
Lyric  poetry  in  English  Literature, 

260. 
Lyric  poetry  of  Greece,  96,  98,  101- 

102  ;    was  sung  to  melodies,  104. 
Lyric  poetry  of  Horace,  131. 
Lyric  poetry  of  India,  54-56. 
Lyric  poetry  of  Persia,  62-66. 
Lyric    poetry  of    the    Semites,    28- 

30. 
Lyrics,  Specimen,  from  the  Sanskrit, 

55-56. 

McCrea,     Nelson    Glenn,     Latin 

Literature,  115-132. 
Machiavelli,  worked  in  courtly  gar- 
ments, 3 ;    desired  a  united  Italy, 

172-173. 
Mackail,  J.  W.,  on  the  Greeks  and 

Romans,   128 ;    on  Lucretius,  320. 
Macpherson,  James,  Ossianic  poems 

of,  translated  into  Italian,  228. 
Maffei,  Scipione,    archseologist,    221. 
Maffei's      "Merope"      modeled     on 

classic  tragedy,  200,  231. 
Mahabharata,  the  Iliad  of  India,  49- 

50. 
Mahdists  of  the  desert,  28. 
Makamahs,    The    rhymed    prose    of 

the,  35. 
Man,  Belief  in  the  rights  of,  335-336, 

351-352. 
Mankind,  Conception  of  the  political 

unity  of,  115. 
Man's    conduct.    Discussion    of,     in 

French  Literature,  285. 
Manu,  The  Code  of,  57. 
Marett,  R.  R.,  on  Greek  Literature, 

103. 
Marie  de  France,  romancer,  135,  136 ; 

tells  her  name,  151. 
"Marriage  of   Figaro,"  "Gil  Bias"  to 

be  traced  in  the,  16. 
Martial,  a  Spaniard,  7,  234  ;  we  walk 

the  streets  of  Rome  with,  119  ;  Du 

Bellay  on,  181  ;   echoes  of,  in   Dry- 
den, 194. 
Mascarille  and  Scapin  of  Molifere,  12. 


INDEX 


393 


"Masnavi,"  The,  of  Jalal  ad  Din 
Rumi,  61-62. 

Matthews,  Brander,  Approaches 
to  Literature,  1-20. 

"Maximes,  Les,"  of  La  Rochefou- 
cauld, 190. 

RIazzuchelli,  Giovan  Maria,  biogra- 
pher, 221. 

Medicine,  Chinese  Literature  on, 
extensive,  86. 

Medieval  period,  The,  defined,  133- 
135 ;  fades  gradually  into  the 
Renaissance,  136. 

Medieval  romance,  136-138. 

Medina  Sidonia,  Duke  de,  burlesqued 
in  "  Don  Quixote,"  says  Defoe, 
243. 

Mediterranean,  The,  a  propagator  of 
Semitism,  23. 

Mediterranean  area.  Commingling 
of  East  and  West  in  the,  40. 

Memnon,  Poems  of  Balbilla  engraved 
on  statue  of,  100. 

Menander,  The  prosaic  comedy  of, 
14. 

Mencius,  the  philosopher  Mong,  79- 
80. 

Mere,  Chevalier  de,  on  Vergil,  359. 

Meredith,  George,  derived  the  novel 
from  comedy,  15 ;  distracting  his 
genius,  264  ;   variety  in,  268. 

"Merope"  of  Maffei,  200,  231. 

"Merope"  of  Voltaire,  191. 

Mesopotamia,  Literature  and  lan- 
guage of,  30-31 ;  debt  of  the  West 
to,  40. 

Metastasio,  Pietro,  poet  and  drama- 
tist, 223. 

Michael  Angelo,  The  two-horned 
Moses  of,  27. 

Michelet  writes  of  politics,  288. 

Micius,  Mo  Ti,  the  philosopher  of 
mutual  love,  86. 

Middle  Ages,  The  (William  With- 
ERLE  Lawrence),  133-153:  Period 
defined,  133-136  ;  Literature  of  the 
aristocracy,  136-142 ;  realism  in 
Literature  of  the  people,  142-147  ; 
influence  of  Church  in,  147-150 ; 
variety  and  richness  of  Literature  of, 
150-151;  fascination  in,  152-153. 
—  Gothic     night     of      the,     155 ; 


believed  that  antiquity  had  never 
died,  156-157 ;  classical  ideals  in, 
180;  a  Romantic  period,  211; 
source  of  modern  Literature,  213. 

Middle  English  romances  imitated 
the  French,  135. 

Middle  High  German  masters  influ- 
enced by  France,  135. 

Midrashim,  The,  36. 

Milton,  Joy  in  a  lasting  friendship 
with,  10 ;  on  Shakspere,  19 ;  debt 
of,  to  other  literatures,  124 ;  last 
English  writer  of  the  Renaissance, 
177  ;  placed  with  the  Elizabethans, 
192 ;  prose  of,  194 ;  Addison  on, 
197;  read  verses  before  academies, 
200;  Satan  in,  210;  wide  influ- 
ence of,  214 ;  moral  purpose  in, 
261  ;    theology  of,  294. 

Minnesingers,  Flavor  of  Middle  Ages 
in  lyrics  of  German,  5. 

Mirkwood,  an  enchanted  forest,  137- 
138. 

"Mirra"  of  Alfieri,  231. 

"Mirror  of  History,"  The,  by  Ssi- 
ma  Kuang,  84. 

Mithra,  Description  of,  in  the  tenth 
Yasht,  59. 

Mock-heroic  poem  created  by  Forte- 
guerri,  219. 

Modern  Literature,  Chief  sources  of, 
213-214. 

Modernism,  Doctrine  of,  165. 

Mohammed,  nourished  in  the  desert, 
28 ;  afraid  of  the  power  of  the  poets, 
32  ;  wide  influence  exerted  by,  38. 

Mohammedan  philosophy  of  the 
Middle  Ages  an  echo  from  Hellas, 
24. 

Mohammedanism,  Historians  of,  38- 
39. 

Mohammedans,  The,  had  their 
preachers  and  moralists,  26. 

"Moise  Sauve"  of  Saint-Amand,  a 
would-be  Vergilian  epic,    190. 

Molifere,  has  limned  society  under 
Louis  XIV,  5-6 ;  to  what  admira- 
tion of,  will  lead,  10 ;  the  Masca- 
rille  and  Scapin  of,  12 ;  influence 
of,  on  Le  Sage,  16 ;  in  Semitic 
translation,  24  ;  attempt  to  adapt, 
for  the  Egyptian  stage,  25;    "Lea 


394 


INDEX 


Precieuses  Ridicules "  of,  188;  con- 
trasted with  Goldoni,  229  ;  literary 

production   of,    279-280 ;     greatest 

dramatic   genius   of   France,    279 ; 

"Misanthrope"    of,    285-286. 
Mong-tzi,  Mencius,  79. 
Montaigne,  on  the  classic  ideal,  209 ; 

a    social     egotist,    212;    conversa- 
tional, 276  ;   echo  of  religious  wars 

in  "Essays"  of,  284. 
Montalvan  on  Lope  de  Vega,  246. 
Montesquieu,  "Persian   Letters"    of, 

286;  "Spirit  of  Laws"  of,  287. 
Moon,  Figures  seen  in  the,  68-69. 
Moore,   Sir  Thomas,   on  virtue  and 

pleasure,  165. 
Moors,    Invasion   of   Spain    by   the, 

235-236  ;  expulsion  of,  from  Spain, 

241. 
Moral  purpose  an  essential  trait  in 

English  Literature,  261. 
"Morgante  Maggiore"  of  Pulci,  146. 
Morris,  William,  Contempt  of  critics 

of,  355. 
"Morte  d'Arthur,"  Caxton's  preface 

to,    quoted,    141-142 ;     pathos   in, 

144. 
Mos  maiorum,  121-122. 
Moses,  the  man  of  God,  on  border 

line  of  mythology,  27. 
Moses,  Michael  Angelo's  two-horned, 

"He  of  the  Two-Horns"   of  Gil- 

gamesh,  27. 
Moths,  The,  and  the  Flame,  Persian 

poem,  62. 
Mozart,  The  Figaro  of,  sprang  from 

Greek  comedy,  12. 
Muratori,    Antonio,    historian,    220 ; 

critic,  225. 
Murray,    Gilbert,    on    the    Homeric 

language,  92. 
Muscovite   princes,    The,   conquered 

the  Tartars,  314. 
Musorgski  on  Art,  326-327. 
Musset,  Alfred  de.  Tragic  and  comic 

fused  in  plays  of,  218;    on  poetry, 

274. 
Muwashshah,  the  strophic  poem,  34. 
Mystic  movement  in  religion,  140. 
Mysticism  in  Persian  Literature,  61- 

62. 
Mythology,  of  ancient  Greece  rooted 


in  religion  of  Babylon,  24,  40 ;  of 
ancient  Semites  gradually  sub- 
limated, 25 ;  traces  of,  in  the 
Bible,  25-26  ;  a  source  of  inspira- 
tion for  modern  Literature,  213. 

Naevius,  a  soldier  before  he  was  a 
poet,  118. 

Napoleon  I,  Lamartine  and  Hugo  on, 
277. 

Napoleon  III,  Hugo's  arraignment 
of,  288. 

Nature,  Life  according  to,  natural 
and  right,  165 ;  Renaissance  ideas 
of,  167,  174;  return  to,  a  chief 
characteristic  of  Romanticism, 
212-213. 

Nebo,  The  God,  brought  writing  to 
the  Babylonians,  21. 

Negation,  Moods  of,  dominant  in 
Christian  doctrine,  163. 

Nestor,  a  real  orator,  106. 

Nestorian  ecclesiastics.  The,  36 ;  at 
Greek  schools,  37. 

Newspaper  press,  Rise  of  the,  343. 

" Newtonianismo  per  le  dame"  of 
Algarotti,  226. 

"Nibelungenlied,"  contrasted  with 
the  "  Poetic  Edda,"  137 ;  the  Age 
of  the,  298;    and  the  "Iliad,"   301. 

Nietzsche,  a  great  prose  poet,  295 ; 
analysis  of  Sainte-Beuve,  361. 

Night  and  Day,  Legend  of  the  origin 
of,  48. 

"Night  Thoughts"  of  Young,  trans- 
lated into  Italian,  230. 

Nizami,  The  rhymed  romance  of, 
61. 

Norman  Conquest  marks  beginning 
of  medieval  period,  134-135. 

Norwegian  Literature,  The  evolu- 
tion of,  339. 

Novalis  on  Romanticism,  204. 

Novel,  the,  Unprecedented  success 
of,  15 ;  a  stimulant  to  the  drama, 
16. 

Oberammergau  dialect.  The,  99. 
Ode,  English,  Form  of  the,  196. 
Odysseus  a  real  orator,  106. 
"Odyssey,   The,"    10;    The  "Iliad" 
and,    the   noblest,    and   only   sur- 


INDEX 


395 


vivals,  of  the  great  body  of  epic 
poetry,  95-96. 

"  Old  Comedy"  of  Athens,  109. 

Olympia,  Games  at,  109. 

Omar  ibn  Abi  Rabi'a,  singer  of  love,  33. 

"On  the  State,"  The,  of  Cicero  con- 
trasted with  "The  Republic"  of 
Plato,  122. 

Open-mindedness  may  be  acquired, 
16-17. 

Opera,  Comic,  in  Italy,  223. 

Opitz  pleaded  for  the  German  lan- 
guage in  Literature,  200-201. 

Oratory,  Development  of,  14  ;  Greek, 
110-112,  125;    Latin,  124-126. 

"Orlando  Furioso"  of  Ariosto,  A  con- 
tinuation of  the,  by  Lope  de  Vega, 
247. 

Ormazd,  Zarathushtra's  chant  to,  58. 

"Osservatore,"  The,  of  Gozzi,  the 
Spectator  of  Italy,  227. 

Ossian  a  Romantic  ancestor,  216. 

Ossianic  poems.  The,  translated 
into  Italian,  226. 

"Othello,"  Criticism  of,  by  Rymer, 
196-197. 

Ovid,  Brilliancy  of  verse  of,  132 ; 
read  by  monks,  148;  "Art  of 
Love,"   157;    Du  Bellay  on,   181. 

Page,  Curtis  Hidden,  The  Roman- 
tic Emancipation,  203-218. 

Pahlavi  Literature  yields  little,  59- 
60. 

Pali,  A  dialectic  Literature  in,  51. 

Panaetius  winning  converts  to  Stoi- 
cism, 121. 

Panchatantra,  The,  translated  by 
Syriac-speaking  monks,  37 ;  and 
its  translations,  51-52. 

Pan-Latinism,  a  dream  of  Latin  re- 
conquest,  158-159 ;  Valla's  empire 
of  the  spirit  well-nigh  realized, 
160-161. 

Pannonian,  The,  proud  to  call  him- 
self a  Roman,  115. 

"Paradise  Lost"  of  Milton,  Addi- 
son on  the,  197. 

Parallelismus  membrorum  of  Egyptian 
and  Hebrew  verse,  28. 

Parini,  Giuseppe,  a  humanitarian 
poet,  200,  229-230. 


Paris,  French  authors  born  in,  7-8. 
Pascal,   on   the   ego,   212 ;   conversa- 
tional in  "Letters"  and  "Pensees," 

276. 
Pater,  Walter,  The  "Plato  and  Pla- 

tonism"   of,  8;    on  the  Romantic 

Age,  137,  204,  207. 
Pathos  in  Medieval  Literature,  145. 
Patmore,     Coventry,     on      "Pepita 

Jimenez,"  249. 
Pearl,  Origin  of  the,  poem  by  Saadi, 

65. 
Pentameter,  104,  105. 
"Pepita    Jimenez,"  The,  of    Valera, 

249. 
Percy,     Bishop,     ridiculed     by     Dr. 

Johnson,  199. 
"Percy  and   Douglas,"    Sidney   and 

Addison  on,  181. 
Pericles,  Speeches  of,  112. 
Perrault,     Charles,     "Parall^le     des 

Anciens  et  Modernes,"  190. 
Perry,    Edward    Delavan,    Greek 

Literature,  91-114. 
Persia,    The    Literature    of,    57-66 ; 

see  also  India  and  Persia. 
Persian  epic  poetry,  60-61. 
Persian  Literature,  Modern,  60-66. 
Persian  mystic  poets,  The,  61-62. 
Persian  mysticism.    Influence   of,    at 

Bagdad,  33. 
Persian  prose  and  drama,  65-66. 
"Persians,"  The,  by  Timotheus,  95. 
Peter  the  Great,  314. 
Petrarch,     captivated     by     Cicero's 

power    over    language,     124 ;      on 

barbarian  rule,   156 ;    urged  Latin 

reconquest,  158-159. 
Petronius,  The  realistic  fiction  of,  4  ; 

possibly  a  Parisian,  7;  a  critic  of 

Lucan,  19. 
Pharmacopoeia,    The   great  Chinese, 

85. 
Phillips,  Stephen,  on  Gladstone,  195. 
"Philosopher      Mong"      (Mong-tzi), 

The,  79-80. 
Philosophers    (tzi),  The,    71  ;   Treas- 
ury of,  84-87. 
Philosophy,  treated  poetically,  48-49 ; 

Cicero  on,  121-122  ;   in  the  Middle 

Ages,  149 ;    in  Italy  in  eighteenth 

century,  220. 


396 


INDEX 


Philoxenus  of  Mabry,  36. 

Phcsnicians  and  Aramaeans,  Success 
of  alphabet  invented  by,  21 ;  the 
PhcEnieians  in  Spain,  234. 

Pico  della  Mirandola  on  man's  free 
will,  168. 

"Piers  Plowman,"  The  author  of, 
typically  English,   253. 

Pindar,  Many  Mss.  of,  96  ;  employed 
Doric  dialect,  100  ;  compared  with 
Corinna,  101  ;  a  Boeotian,  102 ; 
employed  to  write  odes,  109. 

Pinero  indebted  to  Dickens  and 
Thackeray,  16. 

Pippa's  song  quoted,  167. 

Pisareff,  Russian  critic,  on  poetry, 
328. 

Pius  II  on  Eloquence,  160. 

"Les  Plaideurs"  of  Racine  bor- 
rowed from  Aristophanes,  187. 

Plato,  imbibed  wisdom  at  feet  of  the 
Rabbis,  24  ;  translated  into  Syriac, 
37  ;  prose  of,  the  prose  of  a  poet- 
philosopher,  49 ;  some  Dialogues 
of,  spurious,  96  ;  Mss.  few  in  time 
of,  104;  ability  of,  113-114;  "Re- 
public" of  contrasted  with  the 
"On  the  State"  of  Cicero,  122-123. 

Plautus,  has  preserved  the  aroma  of 
the  tenements  of  Rome,  5 ;  fun 
and  wit  of,  132 ;  a  model  for  the 
drama,  181. 

"Pleasure,  or  the  Highest  Good," 
Lorenzo  Valla  on,  165. 

Pleiade,  The,  sought  improvement 
by  classical  imitation,  183 ;  laws 
of  versification  of,  followed  by 
Racine,  786. 

Pliny  the  elder,  re-peoples  Rome,  4. 

Pliny  the  younger.  Optimism  of,  132. 

Plotinus  of  Alexandria  on  man,  164. 

Plutarch,  Importance  of,  in  Greek 
Literature,  114. 

Poe  and  the  supernatural,  215,  218. 

Poet,  Horace  on  the,  120-121. "~'' 

Poetic  diction.  Passion  for,  among 
the  Semites,  22  ;  among  the  Arabs, 
31-32. 

"Poetic  Edda,"  The,  contrasted 
with  the  "Nibelungenlied,"  137. 

Poetics,  Academy  to  compose  a  sys- 
tem of,  184. 


Poetry,  The  decline  of,  344-345  ;  the 
glory  of,  unextinguishable,  346-347. 

Poetry,  ballad.  Rhythm  in,  145. 

Poetry,  Early  Germanic,  133  ;  love- 
interest  in,  138 ;   degenerated,  150. 

Poetry,  Greek,  Forms  of,  98  ;  written 
for  an  audience,  103-104. 

Poetry  of  the  Arabs,  32-33. 

Poetry,  Pastoral,  in  Italy,  2. 

Poitiers,  Battle  of,  140. 

Polybius,  discerned  the  possible  civil 
unity  of  mankind,  115;  on  the 
government  of  Rome,  123  ;  on  the 
Roman  mind,    130. 

"Polyeucte,"  the,  of  Corneille,  Dra- 
matic struggle  in,  185. 

Pope,  Alexander,  a  product  of  Classi- 
cism, 13;  "Essay  on  Man,"  48; 
satirist,  190 ;  Latin  epithets  in, 
194  ;  as  translator,  195 ;  suggests 
the  Latin  Satirists,  198-199;  Pa- 
rini  borrowed  from,  200 ;  deism, 
264 ;  right  of,  to  be  called  a  poet 
questioned,  343. 

Posidonius  on  the  Roman  mind,  130. 

Prayers,  psalms,  and  litanies.  The 
poetic,    of   Babylonia,    28-29. 

Preferences,  Personal,  born  in  ua,  17. 

Preraphaelitism,  Romanticism  gone 
to  seed,  218. 

Progress,  a  duty  imposed  on  man- 
kind, 287. 

"Prometheus  Unbound,"  The  im- 
pressionistic critic  on,  356-358. 

Prose,  Greek,  Forms  of,  98 ;  written 
for  an  audience,  104 ;  ascendency 
of,  over  poetry,  112. 

Prose,  Latin,  modelled  by  Cicero  and 
Sallust,  125,  127. 

Prose,  rhymed.  Cultivation  of,  34- 
35  ;  the  charm  of  Semitic  prose,  35. 

Prose,  Triumph  of,  over  verse,  343, 
344-346. 

Prose  fiction.  Origin  and  develop- 
ment   of,    15-16. 

Prose  fiction,  Sanskrit,  56-57. 

Protagoras,  a  Sophist,  112. 

Protestant  reformers  on  Renaissance 
society,  169. 

Protestantism,  Reaction  against,  170. 

Provence,  Poetry  of,  135. 

Ptolemaeus  grounded  on  Babylonian 


INDEX 


397 


astronomy  translated  into  Eastern 

tongues,  24. 
Puici,  "Morgante  Maggiore"  of,  146. 
Pushkin    claimed    the    usefulness    of 

his  poetry,  323-324;   "The  Echo" 

translated,    324 ;     under    Byron's 

influence,  330. 

Quadrio,  Saverio,  literary  historian, 
221. 

Queen  Anne,  Classical  Literature 
under,   179. 

"Quest  of  the  Holy  Grail"  symbol- 
ized Christian  ideals,  141. 

Quinet  writes  of  politics,  288. 

Quintilian,  ardent  admirer  of  Cicero, 
124  ;  on  Sallust,  127  ;  a  Spaniard, 
234. 

Quirites  of  the  new  Rome,  The  gram- 
marians the,  160. 

"Rabbi  Ben  Ezra"  of  Browning, 
Quotation  from,  209. 

Rabelais,  Francois,  Humor  in,  146 ; 
on  Gothic  night,  155,  156,  163 ;  on 
Nature,  165-166  ;  message  of,  167  ; 
"Abbey  of  Theleme,"  168;  pre- 
supposed the  restraint  of  honor, 
170 ;  pictured  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, 184. 

Racine,  The  Greek  tragedies  of, 
stamped  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, 6 ;  influence  of,  on  Mme.  de 
La  Fayette,  16  ;  in  Semitic  transla- 
tion, 24 ;  most  nearly  realized  the 
Roman  ideal  of  Italian  Humanists, 
172,  173  ;  gave  French  tragedy  its 
classical  form,  185-188 ;  Dryden 
indebted  to,  193  ;  model  for  Italian 
drama,  200 ;  admired  by  Gott- 
sched,  201 ;  "  Andromaque,"  6, 
210;  "Athalie,"  278;  on  omnipo- 
tence of  the  monarch  and  freedom 
of  the  people,  285. 

Radischeff,  327. 

Rama,  the  hero  of  the  Ramayana,  50. 

Ramayana,  The,  epic  poem,  50-51. 

"Ram's  home  rules  of  direction," 
Harvey's,  183. 

"Rape  of  the  Lock,"  Pope's,  a  char- 
acteristic classical  burlesque,  198- 
199. 


Readers,  Goethe's  three  classes  of, 
16. 

Realism,  in  popular  Medieval  Litera- 
ture, 142-143. 

"Recessional,  The,"  3. 

Reform  movement  in  China,  Litera- 
ture of  the,  85. 

Regnier,  a  Parisian,  7 ;  on  rules  of 
Pleiade,  183. 

Reid,  James  S.,  on  Roman  constitu- 
tional history,  131. 

Religion,  Medieval,  140  ;  char- 
acterized, 148-150 ;  See  also 
Church. 

Religious  systems,  The  great,  21. 

Renaissance,  Early  triumphs  of  the, 
12-13  ;  dried  up  in  Classicism,  13  ; 
scholars  of,  certain  of  their  knowl- 
edge, 17;  the  rebirth  of  Latin 
stock,  135 ;  medievalism  fades 
gradually  into  the,  136;  end  of  the, 
177 ;  meaning  of  classic  in,  178 ; 
classical  ideals  in,  180^,  182,  211; 
the  Romantic  movement  another, 
204-205;  revelation  of  the  fif- 
teenth century  to  the,  221. 

Renaissance,  The  (Jefferson  B. 
Fletcher),  155-175:  Dawn  of 
the,  155-156 ;  a  medieval  legiti- 
mist illusion,  156-159 ;  aspira- 
tion to  revive  the  Roman  state, 
157-159;  "revival  of  learning" 
not  for  mere  sake  of  learning,  159- 
161 ;  refining  of  the  vernacular, 
161-162 ;  spread  of  Humanism, 
162-170 ;  effect  of,  on  Literature, 
170-175;  Roman  and  Greek 
moods  of  the,  172-173. 

Renan,  on  real  Literature,  5 ;  Have- 
lock  Ellis  on  the  style  of,  7 ;  ran 
twice  for  election  as  representa- 
tive, 288. 

"  Rerum  italicarum  scriptores "  of 
Muratori,  220. 

Revival,  A  deep  spiritual,  against 
rationalism,  314-315. 

"Reynard  the  Fox"  an  example  of 
medieval  wit,  146-147. 

Rhetoric,  The  Academy  to  compose 
an  authoritative,  184. 

Rhyme,  Use  of,  formulated  by  the 
Pleiade,  183. 


398 


INDEX 


Rhythm,  in  ballad  poetry,  145 ;  in 
the  German  prose  masters,  295. 

Richardson,  a  Romantic  ancestor, 
216. 

Rienzi,  Plea  of  Petrarch  for,  159. 

Rig  Veda,  The  hymns  of  the,  finished 
poems,  44  ;   wholesome  tone  of,  47. 

Rishis,  or  Vedic  bards,  inspired  by 
the  sunrise  splendors,  46. 

Rivarol  on  clearness  in  French  Litera- 
ture, 274. 

Robert  of  Sicily  upheld  by  Floren- 
tines, 158. 

Roland,  celebrated  in  Italy,  135 ; 
discusses  Christian  dogma,  148. 

Roland,  Song  of,  138  ;  in  Spain,  238- 
239. 

Rolli,  Paolo,  Italian  poet,  222. 

Roman  Empire,  disrupted  by  Ger- 
man barbarians,  56 ;  Middle  Ages 
believed  in  unbroken  continuance 
of  the,  157  ;  Renaissance  in  Italy 
sought  restoration  of,  159,  172  ; 
wherever  the  language  prevails ; 
160,  172. 

Roman  constitutional  history,  Un- 
broken evolution  of,  131. 

Roman  Literature,  see  Latin  Litera- 
ture. 

Roman  oratory.  Survey  of,  by  Cicero 
in  the  "Brutus,"  124. 

Romance,  A  new  creation  of  the,  in 
England,  218. 

"Romance  of  King  Ardashir,"  59- 
60. 

Romance  of  Saif  dhu  al-Yazan,  39. 

"Romance  of  the  Rose,"  Quotation 
from  the,  139. 

Romancero,  Period  of  the  Spanish, 
239-240 ;  the  chivalrous,  241 ; 
Cervantes  tried  to  undo  the  vogue 
of  the,  243. 

Romans,  and  Greeks  compared,  9; 
conquest  of  Spain  by,  234. 

Romans,  Medieval,  a  mongrel  popu- 
lace, 159,  172. 

Romantic  age.  Literature  in  the,  136- 
140. 

Romantic  Emancipation,  The  (Cur- 
tis Hidden  Page),  203-218: 
Many  definitions  of  Romanticism, 
203-205 ;      Romanticism    as     dis- 


tinguished from  Classicism,  205- 
211;  examples  of  contrast,  209- 
210;  revolt  against  the  pseudo- 
Classic,  211-213;  the  sources  of 
Modern  Literature,  213-217;  in- 
terest in  all  the  past,  214;  the 
"renascence  of  wonder,"  214-215; 
exotism,  216-219;  results  of,  217- 
218;   reaction  against,  218. 

Romantic  movement,  the,  Beginning 
of,  177 ;  in  England,  179 ;  and 
the  classical  ideal,  182  ;  medieval- 
ism a  characteristic  of,  213-216. 

Romanticism,  its  rise  and  tendency, 
13-14;  defined,  136,  203-205; 
influence  of  Classicism  on,  191 ; 
evolution  from  Classicism,  202 ; 
the  "Renascence  of  Wonder," 
204 ;  contrasted  with  Classicism, 
205-211;    in  Fichte,  209. 

Romanticists,  Negative  work  of  the, 
13 ;  delight  in  enthusiasm,  208 ; 
grasp  at  the  infinite,  209 ;  ban- 
ished rules  from  criticism,  365. 

Romanticists  or  realists.  We  are,  by 
instinct,  17. 

Rome,  Civilized  world  under  sway 
of,  115;  a  spiritual  idea,  116; 
assimilated  and  transmitted  Greek 
culture,  116. 

"  Romeo  and  Juliet"  a  tale  of  Italy,  6. 

Ronsard,  on  Homer,  18 ;  on  Death, 
166 ;  strove  after  classic  models, 
171 ;  founder  of  Romanticists, 
216;    elegant  art  of,  284. 

Rossini,  The  Figaro  of,  sprang  from 
Greek  comedy,  12. 

Rousseau,  Jean  Baptiste,  in  "Con- 
fessions," 140,  212;  on  Roman- 
ticism, 204  ;    poetry  of,  208. 

Rudagi,  Lyrics  from,  62-64. 

Rumi,  Jalal  ad  Din,  Persian  mystic 
poet,  61-62. 

Ruskin  disdaining  discipline,  264. 

Russ,  The,  called  to  rule  Novgorod, 
313. 

Russia,  the  barbarian  country  in 
Europe,  318. 

Russian,  Characteristics  of  the,  318- 
321  ;    his  altruism,  322-323. 

Russian  language.  Riches  of  the,  316— 
317. 


INDEX 


399 


Russian  Literature  (  Jttdah  A.  Joffe)  , 
311-332  :  Sudden  vogue  for,  in 
France,  311-312;  a  new  world 
and  a  new  attitude  of  the  Russian 
writers,  312  ;  geographical  Russia, 
312;  the  Slavs  ethnologically,  313  ; 
Russian  history,  313-316;  Cath- 
erine II,  as  author,  315;  the 
"Darkest  Age"  of,  315;  Lomono- 
soff  on  the  Russian  language,  316  ; 
Turgenieff  on,  316-317;  three 
varieties  of  the  language,  317; 
Russian  authors  realists,  320 ;  all- 
pervading  humanity  of,  321 ;  Gogol 
and  Tolstoy,  321-322;  truth  the 
keynote  of,  323-327;  the  folk- 
novel  movement  of  "going  to  the 
people,"  326-327;  truth  per- 
meated all  branches  of  Russian 
art,  326-327;  faithful  to  its 
mission,  327 ;  the  exclusive  arena 
of  political  struggle,  327 ;  oppo- 
sition to  poetry,  328 ;  the  school 
advocating  "Art  for  Art's  sake," 
328-329  ;  has  mirrored  all  literary 
movements  of  Western  Europe, 
329-330;  the  history  of,  the  his- 
tory of  Russian  thought,  330 ;  in- 
debtedness of  many  foreign  writers 
to  Russian  literary  masters,  330- 
331 ;  Havelock  Ellis  on  Russia's 
future,  331-332. 

Ruteboeuf  a  Parisian,  7. 

Ruy  Diaz  de  Bivar,  see  The  Cid. 

Ryeshetnikoff  wrote  of  the  bargemen 
to  "help  these  poor  toilers,"  326. 

Rj'mer,  Thomas,  on  "Othello,"  196- 
197. 

Saadi,  Lyric  of,  on  the  origin  of  the 

pearl,  65. 
Sachs,  Hans,  a  winsome  poet  in  his 

way,  302. 
"Saggio  sulla  filosofia  della  lingue" 

of  Cesarotti,  227. 
Saint-Amand's  "Moise  Sauv6,"  190. 
Saint    Augustine's    "City   of    God," 

Struggle-for-life   theory   found   in, 

19. 
Saint  Bernard,  on  dogma,   150. 
Saint    Ephrahn,    a    Syriac    poet    of 

merit,  31. 


Saint  James  of  Compostella,  Pil- 
grims of,  240. 

Sainte-Beuve,  as  critic,  18 ;  gives  us 
"biographic  psychology,"  19;  on 
Odysseus  and  ^neas,  130 ;  on 
the  liveliest  joy  of  an  individual, 
180 ;  definition  of  a  classic,  182, 
206  ;  a  senator  leader  writer,  288 ; 
great  master  of  literary  criticism, 
289;    Nietzsche  on,  361. 

"S'akuntala,  The,"  of  Kalidasa,  53. 

Sallust,  The  style  of.  126-127; 
Tacitus  learned  of,  127. 

Samson,  the  man  of  strength,  on 
border  line  of  mythology,  27. 

Sand,  George,  in  politics  as  well  as 
in  Literature,  287. 

Sanskrit  drama.  The,  52-54 ;  the 
lyric  in  perfection  in,  55. 

Santayana  on  Plato,  113. 

Sappho,  employed  Lesbian  dialect, 
100 ;    varied  melodies  of,  108. 

Satire,  French,  in  the  classical  period, 
188. 

Savonarola  protested  against  Hu- 
manism, 170. 

Scandinavia,  Rise  of  verse  in,  150. 

Scarron,  a  Parisian,  7 ;  satires  of, 
188  ;    buriesque  of  Vergil,  190. 

Schiller,  Rhythm  in,  295;  the  be- 
loved ideahst,  308,  309-310. 

Scholastic  philosophy  owed  the  me- 
dium for  its  expression  to  Cicero, 
124. 

Scholasticism,  Protest  against,  140; 
object  of,  149-150. 

Schopenhauer  found  solace  in  the 
Upanishads,  49. 

Science,  Progress  of,  in  Italy  in 
eighteenth  century,  215. 

Scipio  Africanus,  a  leader,  116. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  noblest  British 
writer  of  his  age,  343. 

Scudery,  Georges  de,  "Alaric"  of, 
190. 

Scudery,  Mile,  de.  Novels  of,  208. 

"Seasons,  The,"  of  Kalidasa,  55. 

Seicento,  Reaction  against  extrava- 
gances of  the,  218-219. 

Semites,  We  owe  two  gifts  to  the,  21 ; 
vogue  of  the  alphabet  of  the,  21- 
22 ;    varied,  historic,  and  psychic 


400 


INDEX 


development  of  the,  22-23  ;  forces 
exerted  by  and  upon  the,  23-25 ; 
mythology  of  the,  25-26 ;  heroic 
epic  of  the,  26-27 ;  sprung  from 
the  desert,  27-28 ;  the  epic  of 
Antara,  28 ;   chief  glory  of  the,  40. 

Semitic  Literatures  (R.  J.  H.  Got- 
theil),  21-41 :  Divine  origin  of 
writing,  21  ;  characterization  of, 
difficult,  22  ;  forces  that  have  in- 
fluenced, 23-25 ;  have  developed 
no  drama,  25-26  ;  nor  epic  poetry, 
26-28 ;  lyric  poetry  at  its  fullest 
expression  in,  28-29 ;  Hebrew 
poetry,  29-31  ;  Arabic  poetry,  31- 
34  ;  rhymed  prose,  34-35  ;  Hebrew 
Literature,     35-36 ;  Syriac     a 

Church  language,  36-37 ;  Arabic 
prose,  38-39 ;  polite  literature, 
39 ;  the  Koran  and  the  Bible,  40- 
41. 

Semitic  prose-writing.  The  charm  of, 
35. 

Seneca,  a  Spaniard,  7,  230;  model 
for  drama,  181. 

Senoussis  of  the  desert,  28. 

Serfdom  established  in  Russia,   314. 

Serial  story.  The  earliest,   15. 

Settecento,  The,  215. 

Seven  Sleepers  of  Ephesus,  37. 

Sex  or  gender  assigned  to  every 
object  of  nature,  73-74. 

Shadow-play,  The  Turkish  Kara- 
koz  or,  in  Syria  and  Egypt,  25. 

"Shah  Namah,"  The,  of  Firdausi, 
60-61. 

Shakspere,  an  Elizabethan  English- 
man, 6 ;  Havelock  Ellis  on  S.  and 
Bacon,  7 ;  Milton  on,  19 ;  in 
Semitic  translation,  24  ;  paralleled 
in  India,  54  ;  on  Death,  166-167  ; 
reincarnates  the  Greek  spirit,  173  ; 
a  complete  Humanist,  174  ;  Rymer 
on,  196-197 ;  discountenanced  by 
Gottsched,  201  ;  grandfather  to 
French  dramatists,  216;  founder 
of  English  theater,  247  ;  power  and 
glory  of  style  of,  260 ;  a  dramatic 
giant,  279 ;  naturalized  on  French 
stage,  281. 

Shchedrin  on  poetry,  328. 

Shelley,    Classical    aspects    of,    214 ; 


poems  of,  260 ;  Godwinism  of, 
264. 

Shi,  "Historians,"  71,  81-83. 

Shi-huang-ti,  the  "burner  of  the 
books,"  80. 

Shi-ki,  The,  translated  by  Ed. 
Chavannes,  82. 

Shi-king,  the  "Canon  of  Odes,"  76- 
77. 

Shu-king,  the  "Canon  of  History," 
75-76 ;  only  source  of  the  most 
ancient  history,  75,  81. 

Shui-king,  or  "  Water  Classic,"  84. 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  condemned  the 
English  drama,  181  ;  larger  minded 
than  the  strict  classicist,  182 ; 
artificial  hexameters  of  his  "Arca- 
dia," 183;  liked  "  Chevy  Chase," 
197. 

Sidney's  "Defense  of  Poesy"  imi- 
tated from  the  Italians,  19. 

Simonides,  Longest  fragment  of,  96 ; 
wrote  in  Doric  dialect,  100 ;  an 
Ionian,  102 ;  employed  to  write 
odes,  109. 

Sir  Roger  de  Coverley,  earliest  of 
serial  stories,  15. 

Sita,  the  heroine  of  the  Ramayana,  50. 

Sky-scraper,  The,  a  reversion  to  an 
ancient  type,  19. 

Slavs,  The  ancient,  were  longheads, 
313. 

Socrates,  on  love,  163. 

"Sohrab  and  Rustum,"  The,  of 
Matthew  Arnold,  60-61. 

Solomon,  King  of  wisdom,  on  border 
line  of  mythology,  27. 

Soma-plant,  Laudation  of  the,  144. 

"Song  of  Solomon,"  25. 

Sophists,  Style  of  the,  112. 

Sophocles,  Joy  in  a  lasting  friendship 
with,  10 ;  surviving  tragedies  of, 
95  ;  transformed  the  drama,  109  ; 
one  of  the  great  classic  masters,  257. 

Sophron,  "Mimes"  of,  98,  113. 

South  African  Poetry  and  Verse,  A 
Treasury  of,  339. 

Sovereign,  Absolute  sway  of  the,  and 
freedom  of  the  people,  285. 

Spain,  Literature  of,  deserves  con- 
sideration, 233  ;  the  ' '  Poem  of  the 
Cid,"    236-239;   epico-lyric  period 


INDEX 


401 


of  the  romancers,  239-240 ;  the 
chivalrous  romance  in  prose,  241 ; 
Cervantes,  243-244 ;  Lope  de 
Vega  and  the  drama,  246-247 ; 
Calderon,  247-248  ;  modern  fiction, 
248-250 ;  pronounced  chevalresque 
by  Brunetifere,  292. 

Spain,  Modern  Hebrew  poetry  in, 
30 ;  the  poets  of  Mohammedan, 
34 ;  a  storehouse  of  races  and 
traditions,  233-234  ;  Latin  speech 
and  civilization  in,  234-235 ; 
Moorish  supremacy  in,  235-236 ; 
the  surviving  savage  country  in 
Europe,  318. 

Spaniard,  The,  proud  to  call  himself 
a  Roman,  115—116. 

Spanish  domination  in  Italy,  End 
of,  222. 

Spanish  Literature  (Henry  Alfred 
Todd),  233-250:  Historic  back- 
ground, 233-236;  endless  incursions, 
235  ;  "  Poem  of  the  Cid,"  234-238  ; 
"  Chanson  de  Roland  "  and  ballad 
poetry,  238-240 ;  the  Celtic  cycle, 
240 ;  chivalrous  prose  romances, 
241 ;  Cervantes  and  Don  Quixote, 
241-246;  drama  of  Lope  de  Vega 
and  Calderon,  246-248 ;  modern 
writers,  249-250. 

Spanish  period  in  Latin  Literature, 
234. 

"  Spectator,"  The,  classical  quota- 
tions from,  194  ;  manner  of  society 
portrayed  in,  198 ;  imitated  in 
Italy,  200. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  Ben  Jonson  on 
language  of,  162 ;  opinion  of 
different  ages  upon,  171  ;  illus- 
trates tendency  toward  new  ascet- 
icism, 174-175;    ethics  of,  264. 

Speranza,  Carlo  L.,  Italian  Litera- 
ture in  the  Eighteenth  Century, 
219-231. 

Spingarn,  Joel  Elias,  Literary 
Criticism,  355-373. 

"Spring  and  Autumn"  annals 
(Ch'un-ts'iu),   The,    77-78. 

Ssi-ma  Kuang,  author  of  "The 
Mirror  of  History,"  84. 

Ssi-ma    Ts'ien,     the    Herodotus    of 
China,  82. 
2d 


Ss'i-shu,  the  "Four  Books,"  78. 

Stael,  Mme.  de,  on  the  Romantic 
ideal,  209 ;  on  the  Romantic 
nations,  211  ;  in  politics  as  well  as 
Literature,  287. 

Stage,  The,  the  pulpit  in  ancient 
Greece,  26. 

Statuary,    Greek, .  painted,    96-97. 

Steele,  Addison  and,  15 ;  in  the 
"Spectator,"  198. 

Stendhal  on  Classic  and  Romantic 
taste,  207. 

Stoicism  at  Rome,  121. 

"  Storia  pittorica  d'  Italia,"  221. 

Strauss,  Victor  von,  translator  of  the 
Shi-king,  77. 

Strophe-form,  Use  of,  formulated  by 
the  Pleiade,  183. 

Struggle-for-life  theory  found  in  St. 
Augustine's  "City  of  God,"  19. 

Study,  The  historical  and  compara- 
tive method  of,  117-118. 

Style,  Sense  of,  possessed  by  the 
Greeks,  92 ;  shown  in  Homeric 
poems,  93-106 ;  in  Byzantine 
Literature,  94;    in  oratory,  112. 

S'udraka,  King,  The  "Clay  Cart" 
of,  54. 

Sufi  and  Sufism  in  Persian  poetry, 
61-62. 

Sui  dynasty.  Catalogue  of  the  Im- 
perial collection  of  the,  71. 

Suktas,  '  well-spoken  compositions,' 
45. 

Sumptuousness  in  medieval  romance, 
137-138. 

Sunrise  splendors,  43,  46. 

Superior  man.  The,  78-79. 

Supernatural,  Interest  in  the,  215. 

Sutras,  "threads"  of  rules,  47- 
48. 

Swift  lacks  foremost  traits  of  Classi- 
cism, 198. 

Symbolism,  218. 

"Symposium,"  Plato's,  114. 

Syria,  Debt  of  the  West  to,  40. 

Syriac  language,  preserved  as  a 
Church  tongue,  30 ;  spoken  by 
remnants  of  Aramaean  peoples,  31 ; 
poetry  religious,  31  ;  purely  a 
Church  language,  36  ;  later  Syriac 
Literature  of  translation,  37 ;    the 


402 


INDEX 


stepping-stone     for     Eastern     im- 
agery from  Asia  into  Europe,  37. 
Syrian,  The,  proud  to  call  himself  a 
Roman,  115. 

Tacitus,  "Dialogue"  on  oratory, 
124,  126 ;  on  style  in  Caesar  and 
Cicero,  126;  work  of,  128-129; 
"Germania,"  136. 

Taine,  on  the  tragedies  of  Racine,  6  ; 
followed  Lessing,  18 ;  and  Hegel, 
19;  "Origin  of  Contemporary 
France,"  288;    on  Turgenieff,  325. 

Talmuds,  Mixture  of  two  dialects  in 
the,  36. 

Tanagra  figurines,  The  molders  of 
the,  5. 

Tartar  Invasion,  The,  of  Russia,  313- 
314. 

Tartar  nations.  Ethnographical 
sketches  of,   83. 

Taste,  good,  Value  of,  in  Literature,  8. 

Tauism,  Chinese  works  on,  88. 

Temple,  Sir  William,  on  Gothic 
humors,  133. 

Tennyson,  a  natural  evolution  from 
discipline  of  eighteenth  century, 
202;  a  Romanticist,  218;  feeble 
compromises  in,  261,  264;  Ger- 
man translation  of  "The  splendor 
faUs"  of,  294-295. 

Terence,  a  well  of  "Latin  undefiled," 
132. 

Thackeray,  Pinero  and  Jones  in- 
debted to,  16 ;  Horatian  allusions 
in   "Henry   Esmond,"    195. 

Theater,  Greek  and  French,  con- 
trasted, 187. 

Thelemite  idea  in  Italy,  168. 

Themistocles,  orator,  112. 

Theocritus,  The  idyls  of,  5 ;  intro- 
duced pastoral  poetry,  98,   103. 

Thespis,  gave  impulse  to  dramatic 
art,  109. 

Thessaly,  Political  power  in,   106. 

Thiers,  President,  288. 

Thirty  Years'  War,  Conditions  in 
Germany  at  close  of,  200. 

Thomas,  Calvin,  German  Litera- 
ture, 291-310. 

Thomson,  Parini  borrowed  from, 
200  ;    a  Romantic  ancestor,  216. 


Thoreau  on  Homer  and  Chaucer,  19. 

Thorndike,  Ashley,  H.,  English 
Literature,  251-272. 

"Thousand  Days,"  The  Persian,  the 
basis  of  the  "Arabian  Nights,"  39. 

"Thousand  Nights  and  a  Night, 
The,"  not  considered  as  literature 
by  the  Arabs,  39. 

Thucydides,  "History  of  Peloponne- 
sian  War,"  112;  a  model  for 
Sallust,  126  ;   prose  style  of,  210. 

Ticknor,  G.,  Anecdote  on  books  of 
chivalry,  241. 

Timotheus,  The  "Persians"  of,  95. 

Tiraboschi,  Girolamo,  "Storia  della 
letteratura  italiana,"  221. 

Tisias,  teacher  of  oratory.  111. 

Tocqueville,  a  cabinet  minister,  288. 

Todd,  Henry  Alfred,  Spanish 
Literature,  233-250. 

Tolstoy,  Altruism  of,  322 ;  love  for 
the  truth,  326  ;  pedagogical  labors 
of,  in  Yasnaya  Polyana,  327 ;  a 
true    cosmopolitan,    337-338. 

"Tom  Jones,"  Ethics  in,  263. 

Topical  song,  The,  in  Aristophanes 
and  on  the  modern  stage,  118. 

Tragedy,  in  Ballad  Literature,  144- 
145. 

Tragedy,  French,  185-187. 

Tragedy,  Greek,  Evolution  of,  14 ; 
compared  with  ballad,  145. 

Tragedy,  Italian,  231. 

Trajan,  from  Seville,  first  foreigner 
on  Roman  throne,  234. 

Trent,  William  Peterfield,  The 
Cosmopolitan  Outlook,  333-354. 

Trimeter,  104 ;  iambic,  suited  to 
forcible  expression,  107-108. 

Truth,  Lessing  valued  seeking,  above 
possession  of,  18. 

Tso-chuan  by  Tso-k'iu  Ming,  chief 
source  of  Chinese  history,  78. 

Turgenieff,  Realism  of,  13 ;  on  the 
Russian  language,  316;  "Annals 
of  a  Sportsman"  superior  to 
"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  325,  327. 

T'u-shu-tsi-ch'ong,  the  Chinese  cyclo- 
pedia, in  over  five  thousand  vol- 
umes, 87. 

Twain,  Mark,  and  the  Mississippi 
river-folk,  6. 


INDEX 


403 


Twelfth  century,  Importance  of,  134. 

"Twenty-four  Histories,"  The,  81- 
82. 

Tyranny,  a  form  of  Greek  govern- 
ment, 106-107. 

Ulfilas,  The  Visigoths  converted  by, 
235. 

Ulysses  abides  with  his  own  people, 
11. 

Umayyids,  Literature  prized  at  the 
Court  of  the,  33. 

Unities,  Classical,  185,  186,  196,  201. 

Unity,  Civil  and  religious,  of  man- 
kind, 115-116. 

Upanishads,  The  Sanskrit,  the  oldest 
philosophical  treatises  in  Indian 
Literature,  48^9 ;  Schopenhauer 
and  Emerson  and  the,  49. 

Urbanite,  L',  etait  nee,  130. 

Ushas,  goddess  of  the  dawn.  Hymns 
to,  46-47. 

Utopians  define  virtue,  165. 

Valera,  Juan,  Spanish  author  of 
fiction,  249. 

Valla,  Lorenzo,  on  Roman  Empire, 
159,  160,  162;  "On  pleasure,  or 
the  highest  good,"  165  ;  on  pleas- 
ures of  the  senses,  169,  170 ; 
prophecy  of,  verified,  172 ;  affir- 
mation of  Nature,  174. 

Valmiki,  author  of  the  Ramayana,  50. 

Varano,  Alfonso,  "Giovanni  Giscala" 
of,  231. 

Varuna,  King,  The  noblest  early 
hymns  addressed  to,  45. 

Vedas,  The  divine  powers  of  nature 
personified  in  the  sacred  hymns  of 
the,  44. 

Veitch,  John,  on  Lucretius,  119. 

Verga  pictures  the  primitive  peasants 
of  Sicily,  5. 

Vergil,  Bacon  on,  117;  influence  of, 
117,  129;  Rome's  greatest  poet, 
129;  works  of,  129-130;  essen- 
tially Roman,  130 ;  Messianic 
Ecologue  of,  163  ;  Addison  on,  181 ; 
burlesque  of,  by  Scarron,  190 ; 
echoes  of,  in  Dryden,  194  ;  studied 
by  Parini,  230 ;  Chevalier  de  Mere 
on,  359. 


Verhaeren,  Emile,  sacrificed  clear- 
ness to  music,  276. 

Vernacular,  Dante  on  the,  157 ; 
Boccaccio  and  Dante  on,  161,  162. 

Verri,  Pietro,  "II  Caff^,"  225. 

Verse,  Grammatical,  legal,  and  medi- 
cal treatises  in,  22. 

Versification,  as  test  of  Classicism, 
191. 

Vico,  Giambattista,  "Scienza  nu- 
ova,"   220;   critic,  225. 

Vigny,  Alfred  de,  not  a  popular  poet, 
277. 

Villemain,  cabinet  minister,  288. 

Villon  a  Parisian,  7. 

Vina,  The,  or  lute,  of  the  Hindu,  54. 

Virgin  Mary,  "Art  of  Love"  dedi- 
cated to,  157. 

Vis'akhadatta,  a  dramatist  of  India, 
54. 

Visigoths  established  in  Spain,  235. 

"Vita;,"  52. 

Vladimir  introduced  Christianity  into 
Russia,  313. 

Voltaire,  sums  up  the  chief  traits  of 
Classicism,  190-191 ;  manner  of 
writing,  194;  "Merope,"  191, 
200  ;  dramas  of,  208  ;  influence  of 
in  Italy,  226 ;  imitated  Goldoni, 
229;  "Brutus"  and  "Zaire," 
278;  literary  career  of,  282-283; 
and  Bossuet,  283 ;  the  eighteenth 
the  century  of,  284;  "English 
Letters,"  282-283,  286-287 ; 
"Essay   on    Manners,"    283,    287. 

Von  Ranke,  L.,  on  Tacitus,  128. 

Wahebis  of  the  desert,  28. 

Waller,  Edmund,  the  beginning  of 
Classicism  in  England,  191. 

Walther  von  der  Vogelweide,  the 
most  winsome  lyrist  of  medieval 
Europe,  300. 

Wang-mang,  the  usurper,  Destruc- 
tion of  books  by,  70. 

Wang  Wei,  The  poems  of,  §9. 

Warfare,  Medieval,  140. 

Watts-Dunton  on  Romanticism,  204. 

Webster,  Daniel,  Influence  of  Demos- 
thenes and  Cicero  on,  14. 

Weltanschauung,  Our  monotheistic, 
due  to  the  Semites,  21. 


404 


INDEX 


Wcrthor,  Sorrows  of,  caused  many  a 
suicide,  14. 

West,  The  debt  owed  by  the,  to  the 
East,  40. 

Wilkins,  Miss,  preserves  the  spinsters 
of  New  England,  5. 

Wine,  Rudagi's  lyric  on,  63. 

Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,   135,  300. 

Woman,  Exaltation  of,  in  the  feudal 
period,  138. 

Won-wang,  Commentary  of,  on  the 
"Eight  Diagrams,"  74-75. 

Wordsworth,  Theory  of  natural 
diction  of,  190 ;  protested  against 
Pope's  diction,  192,  194  ;  an  evolu- 
tion from  the  discipline  of  eigh- 
teenth century,  202  ;  love  of  nature 
in,  213  ;  battle  for  the  humble,  217. 

Work  of  art.  The  supreme  test  of  a, 
118. 


World-religions,    Three   great,    came 

from  the  Semites,  21. 
Writing,  invented  in  various  places, 

21-22. 

Yama  and  his  sister  Yami,  the  first 
beings  on  earth,  Legend  of,  48. 

Yang  Chu,  the  philosopher  of  pessi- 
mism, 86. 

Yashts,  "praises,"  The  Avestan,  59. 

Young's  "Night  Thoughts"  trans- 
lated into  Italian,  230. 

Yudhishthira,  The  Agamemnon  of 
the  Mahabharata,  49. 

Zajal,  The,  a  sort  of  ottave-rime,  34. 

Zarathushtra,  The  anthem  of  divine 
praise  of,  58. 

Zeno,  Apostolo,   scholar  and  bibliog- 
rapher, 220-221 ;  court  poet,  223. 
C.  Alex.  Nelson. 


THE   COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

Columbia  University  in  the  City  of  New  York 

LECTURES   ON    SCIENCE,    PHILOSOPHY,    AND   ART 

A  SERIES  of  twenty-one  lectures  descriptive  in  non-technical 
language  of  the  achievements  in  Science,  Philosophy,  and 
Art,  and  indicating  the  present  status  of  these  subjects  as  concepts 
of  human  knowledge,  were  delivered  at  Columbia  University,  during 
the  academic  year  1907-1908,  by  various  professors  chosen  to  repre- 
sent the  several  departments  of  instruction. 

MATHEMATICS  —  By  Cassius  Jackson  Keyser,  Adrain  Professor  of 
Mathematics. 

PHYSICS  —  By  Ernest  Fox  Nichols,  Professor  of  Experimental  Physics. 

ASTRONOMY  —  By  Harold  Jacoby,   Rutherfurd   Professor  of  Astronomy. 

GEOLOGY  —  By  James  Furman  Kem?,   Professor  of  Geology. 

BIOLOGY  —  By  Edmund  B.  Wilson,    Professor  of  Zoology. 

PHYSIOLOGY  —  By  Frederic  S.  Lee,   Professor  of  Physiology. 

BOTANY  —  By  Herbert  Maule  Richards,   Professor  of  Botany. 

ZOOLOGY  —  By  Henry  E.  Crampton,    Professor  of  Zoology. 

ANTHROPOLOGY  —  By  Franz  Boas,    Professor  of  Anthropology. 

ARCHAEOLOGY  —  By  James  Rignall  Wheeler,  Professor  of  Greek  Ar- 
chaeology and  Art. 

HISTORY — ^By  James  Harvey  Robinson,  Professor  of  History. 

ECONOMICS  —  By  Henry  Rogers  Seager,  Professor  of  Political  Economy. 

POLITICS  —  By  Charles  A.   Beard,    Adjunct   Professor  of  Politics. 

JURISPRUDENCE  —  By  Munroe  Smith,  Professor  of  Roman  Law  and 
Comparative  Jurisprudence. 

SOCIOLOGY  —  By  Franklin  Henry   Giddings,  Professor  of  Sociology. 

PHILOSOPHY  —  By  Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  President  of  the  University. 

PSYCHOLOGY  —  By  Robert  S.  Woodworth,  Adjunct  Professor  of  Psy- 
chology. 

METAPHYSICS  — By  Frederick  J.  E.  Woodbridge,  Johnsonian  Professor 
of  Philosophy. 

ETHICS  —  By  John  Dewey,  Professor  of  Philosophy. 

PHILOLOGY  —  By  A.  V.  W.  Jackson,  Professor  of  Indo-Iranian  Languages. 

LITERATURE  —  By  Harry  Thurston  Peck,  Anthon  Professor  of  the  Latin 
Language  and  Literature. 

These  lectures  are  published  by  the  Columbia  University  Press  sep- 
arately in  pamphlet  form,  at  the  uniform  price  of  twenty-five  cents, 
by  mail  twenty-eight  cents.  Orders  will  be  taken  for  the  separate 
pamphlets,  or  for  the  whole  series.  Also  to  be  had  in  one  volume, 
blue  cloth,  at  $5.00  net;  by  mail,  $5.27. 

LEMCKE    &    BUECHNER,    Agents 

30-32   W.    27th   ST..    NEW   YORK 


THE  COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY   PRESS 

Columbia  University  in  the  City  of  New  York 


Books  published  at  net  prices  are  sold  hy  hooksellers  everywhere  at  the  advertised 
net  prices.  When  delivered  from  the  publishers,  carriage^  either  postage  or 
evpressage,  is  an  extra  charge. 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LECTURES 


BLUMENTHAL  LECTURES 

POLITICAL    PROBLEMS    OF   AMERICAN    DEVELOPMENT.     By 

Albert  Shaw,  LL.D.,  Editor  of  the  Review  of  Reviews.     12mo, 
cloth,  pp.  vii  +  268.     Price,  $1.50  net. 

CONSTITUTIONAL  GOVERNMENT  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

By  WooDROw  Wilson,  LL.D.,  President  of  Princeton  University. 
12mo,  cloth,  pp.  vii  +  236.     Price,  $1.50  net. 

THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  POLITICS  FROM  THE  VIEWPOINT  OF 
THE  AMERICAN  CITIZEN.  By  Jeremiah  W.  Jenks,  LL.D., 
Professor  of  Political  Economy  and  Politics  in  Cornell  University. 
12mo,  cloth,  pp.  xviii  +  187.     Price,  $1.50  net. 

THE  COST  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  GOVERNMENT.  A  Study  in  Po- 
litical Pathology.  By  Henry  Jones  Ford,  Professor  of  Politics 
in  Princeton  University.  12ino,  cloth,  pp.  xv  +  147.  Price, 
$1.50  net. 

HEWITT  LECTURES 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  MONOPOLY.  A  Study  of  a  Grave  Danger  and 
the  Means  of  Averting  It.  By  John  Bates  Clark,  LL.D.,  Pro- 
fessor of  Political  Economy,  Columbia  University.  12mo,  cloth, 
pp.  vi  +  128.     Price;  $1.25  net. 

POWER.  By  Charles  Edward  Lucke,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Mechani- 
cal Engineering,  Columbia  University.  12mo,  cloth,  pp.  vii  -1-  316. 
With  many  illustrations.     Price,  $1.50  net. 

JESUP  LECTURES 

LIGHT.  By  Richard  C.  Maclaurin,  LL.D.,  Sc.D.,  President  of  the 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology.  12mo,  cloth,  pp.  ix  4-  251. 
Price,  $1.50  net.  

LEMCKE  &  BUECHNER,  Agents 

30-32   W.  27TH    ST.,  NEW   YORK 


THE  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY   PRESS 

Columbia  University  in  the  City  of  New  York 


The  Press  was  incorporated  June  8,  1893,  to  promote  the  publication 
of  the  results  of  original  research.  It  is  a  private  corporation,  related  di- 
rectly to  Columbia  University  by  the  provisions  that  its  Trustees  shall  be 
officers  of  the  University  and  that  the  President  of  Columbia  University 
shall  be  President  of  the  Press. 


The  publications  of  the  Columbia  University  Press  include  works  on 
Biography,  History,  Economics,  Education,  Philosophy,  Linguistics,  and 
Literature,  and  the  following  series : 

Columbia  University  Biological  Series. 

Columbia  University  Studies  in  Classical  Philology. 

Columbia  University  Studies  in  Comparative  Literature. 

Columbia  University  Studies  in  English. 

Columbia  University  Geological  Series. 

Columbia  University  Germanic  Studies. 

Columbia  University  Indo-Iranian  Series. 

Columbia  University  Contributions  to  Oriental  History  and 
Philology. 

Columbia  University  Oriental  Studies. 

Columbia  University  Studies  in  Romance  Philology  and  Lit- 
erature. 

Blumenthal  Lectures.  Hewitt  Lectures. 

Carpentier  Lectures.  Jesup  Lectures. 

Catalogues  will  be  sent  free  on  application. 


LEMCKE  &  BUECHNER,  Agents 

30-32   W,  27TH    ST.,  NEW   YORK 


\ 


JP 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


)CT  2  5  19541 
DFC  2     1954 

m  2  7  ^^^^ 

MAR  2  6  1958 
^^^  I  I  1963 

^UN 121969 

Form  L9-100in-9,'52(A3105)444 


rr., 


71977 


^lOS-AN. 


S^ 


L  007  774  570  1 


IlillBlllll'lni^'^'^'^^^  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

AA    000  800  944    1 


I 


liiiii; 


I  r 


'■','>■  ■■<\^\\\'y\V]^'^' 


■i>'^;r;:'p 


•,    ]'\''r'']^\ 


.1,; 
i 

^^^^^HBJHBHilHHBllHMIIHHlli'^ 

